Valkyrie
by A Frumious Bandersnatch
Summary: The dragons were never Berk's only enemies. There are other enemies who believe that Hiccup is the key to what they need. It's no secret that he knows how to tame a dragon. And after all, word gets around. SEMI-PERMENANT HIATUS. SORRY.
1. Everything Changes

**A/N:** After seeing _How to Train Your Dragon_ twice in less than a week, this idea hit me hard upside the head and before I knew it, it was unraveling into a full idea that I knew I could have lots of fun with. I'll be playing fast and loose with the historical accuracy; basically taking the mythologies and true-to-history concepts, and spinning them in a different direction.

Enjoy the finished product.

**Disclaimer:** Quite unfortunately, I do not own _How to Train Your Dragon_. That honor belongs to Dreamworks and Cressida Cowell. That does not, however, stop me from wanting to own a Terrible Terror.

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**Valkyrie**

Chapter One: Everything Changes

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There was nothing remotely poetic or gradual about the way Hiccup woke up. It was a sudden shot back to consciousness like someone had punched him hard in the stomach. He went from one form of darkness to another as his eyes flew open, staring at the ceiling without seeing it. His heart was beating a hard, painful tattoo under his ribs; so hard he thought it would burst from his chest. He pressed a hand down on his chest, willing his heart to stop pounding so furiously. He could hear it in his ears. It was so _loud_. So loud and he was sure that someone could hear it. Inept at the parenting lark though he might be, his father would still come rushing in madly if he thought his son was in some kind of danger.

He was uncomfortably short of breath too, but he held it in and listened, praying that he had not woken up screaming or crying or generally making noises that would rouse the other members of the small household.

He listened and heard nothing out of the ordinary.

It wasn't just his pounding heart that sounded so loud. Stoic the Vast snored heartily one room over; his mighty lungs producing a sound that rivaled the intensity of the thunder during many storms. Hiccup was fairly confident that his father would be able to sleep through Ragnarok. Indeed, his snores were rattling the wooden wall that separated his room from Hiccup's. The sound was comforting in its own, irritating way. Many nights he had fought for sleep while listening to **that** lullaby.

It took him a moment, however, to recognize the sound the rain hammering down on the roof overhead. It was spring and the warm south winds had arrived early, turning much of the potential snow into rain. Buckets and buckets of rain had been pouring over Berk for days. Horrible flying weather until you got above the clouds. Of course, you got drenched along the way so it wasn't much fun.

His heart backing off from its galloping pace, Hiccup closed his eyes again for a brief moment before allowing them to open again. There wasn't much to see as it was still the middle of the night and it was pitch black, but he knew his room very well. Knowing instinctively that nothing was out of place -- that everything was right where he had left it the night before -- and that he was safe in case of trouble -- lent him a small measure of comfort.

But all the familiarity and the knowledge that his family was close at hand couldn't do a thing for easing his nightmares.

It was always the same bad dream every night, though he was hesitant to blatantly give it the title of 'nightmare'. He knew nightmares. He'd had nightmares before. Nightmares about being outcasted from the village and losing what tiny bit of respect the people had for him. More recent were the nightmares about the Queen Dragon and her teeth. Nightmares about his all too close brush with death. Even nightmares (though he was even more hesitant to admit that that he'd had them) in the days following their first meeting; nightmares about Toothless eating him instead of running away.

He never quite remembered the full contents of this new nightmare. He was quite sure that he didn't want to. What he could remember wasn't very pleasant. Lightning-quick flashes of a dark place full of the tang of iron; a sense that this dark place smelled positively foul; a sense that this dark place was bad. He could remember the feelings of being trapped and helpless with certain doom breathing down the back of his neck, ready to sink its teeth into his flesh.

For the life of him, Hiccup could not decipher the meaning of this dream/nightmare. On its first occurrence, he had attributed the trapped and helpless feeling to the frustration he still experienced with his prosthetic foot when it bothered him. After the fifth night of the same dream and the same flashes and feelings, he knew it had nothing do with any external forces. There was something else and he was missing it.

He was a Viking. He was proud, strong (of heart and mind, though not in muscles), determined, and very stubborn. He was determined to figure all this out before he heartily loathed going to bed. It was unbecoming for a Viking to be scared of sleeping, much less being afraid of something that couldn't even scratch you.

The Viking stubbornness that he clearly suffered from prevented him speaking a word to anyone about this new thing that was plaguing his sleep. No one had to know. What would the village say if they found out that the chieftain's son was frightened of closing his eyes at night?

Months had passed since that rather exciting autumn when he had proven that dragons weren't nearly as scary as they Vikings had believed for seven generations or longer. Months since he had lost his foot in a horribly fiery inferno -- since the death of the Queen Dragon; something that qualified as a small landmass in its own right and merited its own posting code. But at times he still felt that the respect he had earned from that courageous and daring and incredibly stupid (when he looked back on it) bid for survival wasn't fully deserved. He still felt that the village still laughed at him, but they just laughed from behind closed doors now. He still felt that they still regarded him as a joke of a Viking. As Hiccup the Useless.

It was hard to completely throw off a title that he had spent fourteen years earning, after all.

Hiccup shifted restlessly, hearing the bed squeak under him. He winced and found himself holding his breath again. There was one resident of the house that he didn't particular want awake right now. Toothless the Night Fury; the rarest, fastest, most intelligent and deadliest of all the dragon species.

And at the moment, curled like a cat against the warm stones of the chimney that was one wall of Hiccup's bedroom. The Night Fury growled softly with every exhale and twitched in his slumber, dreaming whatever it is that dragons dreamt about.

Near the tip of the larger dragon's tail was a mostly green Terrible Terror. It was the same one that had accepted a fish from Hiccup after his and Toothless's first successful flight, and now all but adopted the boy and scratched on the walls, to Stoic's unhappiness. In its sleep, it squeaked and snapped its jaws like it was devouring something particularly tasty.

The Terrible Terrors were most populous of all the dragon species. Their life-spans were relatively short compared to other dragons, so they reproduced quick and laid large clutches of eggs. The Vikings had initially worried that the little dragons' population would grow too fast and get out of hand all too quickly. But the Terrors had won their place in the community by proving to be excellent in pest control. Never before had the village of Berk been so free of rats and mice and other vermin. Now there was at least one Terror per house and many more ran "free-range" around the village in packs, occasionally mobbing Tuffnut, whom they seemed to have an unusual attraction to.

Smothering his yawn to the point of silence, Hiccup pushed the blanket aside and leaned over the side of the narrow bed to grab the prosthetic and strap it on. He never quite fell back to true sleep after his little dream/nightmare thing, but it was about time to get up anyways. He was on watchtower duty this month and he had to take over watch from Astrid very shortly. Spring was coming on much quicker this year and its arrival was marked by the strong south winds that pushed warm air against the charming "freezing death" aspect of Berk. The winds typically brought their perennial (human) enemies northwards as well. Being the first Viking tribe to make peace with and make friends with the dragons (something that was simply unheard of in their culture) in ages, it was only natural for them to be wary of dumb-ass glory-seekers who would go as far as to shoot down one of Berk's "domesticated" dragons. Berk had still had visitors over the winter and word got around.

With the prosthetic secured and himself now fully dressed, Hiccup eased off the bed, willing it not to squeak or shudder or make any noise at all. He loved Toothless to bits, but the Night Fury made for the worse sort of guard dog; the really good kind that jumped to attention at even the most innocuous of noises. He also glowered at anyone who looked at the Viking teen cross-eyed and followed Hiccup just about everywhere.

This was very inconvenient during watch-duty.

The tower was small; there was barely room enough for two people let alone Toothless. A fully-grown Night Fury was hardly the largest of the dragon species, but they were nowhere near as small as the Terrible Terrors. And trying to convince Toothless that there was no way he could squeeze into the tower was no mean feat. It had taken promises of fish to get the dragon to back off and the Night Fury had taken up sentry duty at the bottom of the stairs until Hiccup's watch had ended.

Quite fortunately, the bed did not squeak and neither did the Viking's false foot. Hiccup had tinkered with it a lot over the winter and he had succeeded reducing the amount of noise it made every time he walked a step. He was used to wearing it -- it was just as much a part of him now as his flesh and blood foot had been -- but he had developed something of an aversion to hearing his own footsteps.

Keeping an intent eye on the dim outline of the dragon's curled form, Hiccup edged across the floorboards as quietly as he could, taking small steps. The room was as black as pitch and Toothless blended in with the dark just a little too well.

_He _**is**_ a Night Fury. They're sort of meant to do that._ The Viking teen thought with a smile, carefully stepping over the dragon's tail and the Terrible Terror, and out the door. He made his way slowly down the narrow stairs. Luckily, he didn't trip like the last couple of times.

It was cold, wet and thoroughly miserable outside. Hiccup groaned when the wind hit him. The north winds and the south wind were busy competing for dominance and at the moment, the north winds had the upper hand. His body went from warm to freezing in the span of a few seconds. He wrapped his arms around himself, ducked his head and set off at a fast walk through the village. He wanted to run for the watchtower, but he had learned never to run on his false foot. A light jog, yes. But a run? No. No way. Whenever he tried to run, he usually ended face first in the mud.

As a result, Hiccup was plenty soaked by the time he found the muddy path that led up to the tower. The rain drove in from all directions and he was effectively blinded in the dark. Without a source of light to be seen, it took time for him to get his bearings. The knees of his trousers were stained from the several times he had slipped in the mud, unable to catch himself quite as quickly with the prosthetic. It had been raining nonstop for the past four days now. Hiccup couldn't remember when he had last seen the sun properly. If the rain kept falling at this rate, Berk might get flooded out.

"Look at it this way." he told himself consolingly through chattering teeth. "All this -- All this could have been snow."

That made him feel better. Winter around these parts were never wonderful. Hiccup had gotten lost in snowdrifts before.

The watchtower was one of four that guarded Berk's ocean-bound borders, each set flush to a cliff-face at uneven intervals. The wooden planks were old and weathered and so gray that they blended in quite well with the perpetually damp stone walls. They were possibly the only structures in Berk that had not been rebuilt since their original construction.

All four towers were equipped with a great brass bell that, when rang, raised an unholy ruckus that was sure to wake the village. The towers were manned at any time of the day or night. They had originally been built with the primary purpose of dragon-watching, but the Vikings knew that all of their enemies came by sea. The dragons were no longer a threat to their lives. Only the seas were left to scan for unfriendly ships.

The worn, creaking steps announced Hiccup's arrival well before he reached the tower. Astrid was ready to assault him with a fur blanket just a second after he had crawled into the low-ceilinged space. Hiccup didn't see her coming. He let out a muffled yell when his vision suddenly went completely black and even though it he knew it was just Astrid, he tried to throw her off anyways.

However, his hand-to-hand left much to be desired. All Viking children had to learn to fight with their fists and their feet before picking up a weapon. Hiccup hadn't so much as learned how to fight as he had learned how to duck and dodge and generally run away from the person who was trying to hurt him. It wasn't his fault, really. He had been repeatedly paired with his cousin Snotlout during training and Snotlout had been quite big for a six-year old.

And in the low-ceilinged space with Astrid having clamped her arms around him, thereby pinning his own arms to his sides, he didn't stand a chance. He flailed his untrapped limbs spectacularly, but ultimately failed to dislodge Astrid from his person.

"You're late." she informed him tartly, deliberately tightening her grip. She wasn't as annoyed as she sounded, though.

"Overslept. Still waking up." Hiccup said apologetically, still squirming a little. He couldn't decide if she was hugging him or trying to break his spine. He opted for the latter as being the more likely. Vikings had a very vague idea of what a hug was. As far as they understood it, it involved wrapping your arms around a person and squeezing them half to death.

"Wimp. You'd think after all the times we had to get up in the middle of the night and defend the village from dragon raids, you'd be used to it." Astrid said, mercifully letting go of him.

"In case you forgot, I was the one who always had to stay indoors during dragon raids." Hiccup reminded her, pushing the heavy fur back so he could breathe properly again. "And have you heard my dad snore? Getting to sleep is a battle."

Astrid looked at him critically a moment and then picked up the waterskin and the cup that had been sitting at her side. She uncorked the skin and tipped a small amount of liquid into the cup. "Here. Drink this."

Even though in the last few months, his peers' opinion of him had changed dramatically, Hiccup was still wary of anything they offered him. He stared at the bare amount of liquid in the cup until Astrid frowned at him and pointedly cleared her throat. With a sense of foreboding, he took a sip. The liquid barely touched his tongue before he spat it back out in a hurry. The taste lingered, unfortunately.

"What **is** this?! It's disgusting!" He wiped his mouth. It felt as though his tongue had lost all feeling. And he could still taste that awful-- Dear Odin, what was this crap?!

"That is my dad's special 'wake-up' juice. He keeps some of it right by the bed because he's a heavy sleeper." Astrid explained with a positively wicked smirk. After being unfortunate enough to sample it while still very young and spending the rest of the day with her head over a bucket, it was a powerful motivator to never doze off during a watch-shift. Keeping it close at hand carried the threat of being forced to drink it. She had never had to. Not once. "You absolutely **do not** want to know what's in it. But it'll give you a bad stomachache if you drink too much of it at one time."

Hiccup wiped at his mouth again, thoroughly disgusted. "It tastes like cow piss."

"How do you know what cow-- No, never mind. I think that's one of those things I don't need to know about." Astrid shook her head. Hiccup was probably intimately acquainted with a lot of things that no one should ever be acquainted with.

Hiccup waited until the blonde Viking had stashed that waterskin of foul, vile, god-cursed -- _stuff_ -- out of sight before he lowered his guard and shifted around to make himself comfortable. His knee bumped into Astrid's and he pulled it away quickly. He was _very_ aware of how close to each other they were sitting. He told himself it was just circumstance -- the tower was very small. But her shift was up, it was his turn now, and she was _still here_.

"Astrid, shouldn't you be going now?" Hiccup wondered, though admittedly he was not eager to see her leave. He kind of wanted her to stick around for a bit so they could talk.

"I -- wanted to talk to you." Astrid admitted. "I've barely seen you all winter."

"Well, the snowdrifts have been up to my neck all winter." Hiccup pointed out jokingly. She punched him in the shoulder. "Ow!"

"You've been busy re-educating the village about dragons and I got suckered into teaching hand-to-hand combat training to the little kids. We haven't said more than ten words to each other all winter." Astrid said, a hand quickly brushing over her hair.

That was true. Winter didn't lend itself particularly well to socializing. If you weren't huddled indoors in front of the fire, then you were wrapped up in so many layers of fur that it was nearly impossible to distinguish one person from another. And equally difficult to move.

"So... What do you want to talk about?" Hiccup asked slowly.

Astrid took a long time to answer. It was too dark to see her expression, but they were jammed up right next to each other. Hiccup couldn't avoid feeling the sudden tension taking up residence in the muscles of the blonde Viking's arm. He tried not to flinch. He couldn't go around flinching every time he realized that Astrid was tense or his arm would be permanently black and blue.

In the time it took her to answer, Hiccup's mind ran through a number of possible replies, all of them revolving around the same topic. What did Astrid think of him?

Sure, she had kissed him on several occasions. Quick kisses, like she was trying to sneak them in before he noticed them and then pretending they never happened. Typical Viking _modus operandi_. Confuse the bejeezus out of them by pretending that physical affection didn't exist. But it had happened often enough that he knew it was no fluke. Other than that... He didn't know.

Come to think of it, Hiccup knew next to nothing about her -- or really any of the other people he had come to call his friends. Snotlout was annoying and something of a bully, but determined to be a model Viking. Fishlegs could analyze a dragon's strengths and weaknesses after several _seconds_ of observation, but he was a little socially-challenged. Ruffnut and Tuffnut fought with each other a great deal over the most trivial of things, but when they put their mind to working as a team, they managed it wonderfully. Astrid was a fierce, proud warrior, but between that whole punching/kissing thing, Hiccup was still confused about her feelings towards him.

He could make no assumptions about where he stood with Astrid except to say that they had a comfortable friendship.

"Y'know..." Astrid shrugged. "Just-- Just stuff. How's your leg?"

"Leg?" Hiccup repeated, completely bewildered for a split-second. "Oh, my leg's fine. Um, you know, I've gotten used to it. It's not bothering me anymore."

This was not what he had been hoping to talk about.

"That's good." Astrid nodded, her lips pulling back in a brief smile. "You're still limping. though."

"Yeah, I'm probably never going to get rid of that." Hiccup said, unconsciously rubbing his lower leg that was encased inside the socket. He had accepted the perpetual limp just as much as he had accepted the prosthetic foot.

"Are you looking forward to the gather this year?" Astrid wondered curiously.

"You mean that annual pissing contest between all the Viking tribes?" Hiccup grumbled, bad memories of past gathers resurfacing. Yes, the gathers were a good chance to strengthen alliances between tribes, but it was also a good way to get your butt kicked and make a fool of yourself in front of more than half the population of Vikings in the world.

Berk was hosting this year. They had not been hosts for a while now and already the village was looking better than he remembered. Stoic was bound and determined to prove that Berk was flourishing in spite of the frequent dragon raids. Which, of course, had now stopped.

Not that Berk didn't still show some bite marks from when the dragons had been swiping livestock for their queen. The Terrible Terrors liked to sharpen their teeth on any wooden beams that stuck out and the Gronckles tended used the Terrors as target practice. The Monstrous Nightmares weren't overly fond of the Nadders and the Zipplebacks were territorial at the worst possible moments. Everyone had become very fast at putting out fires.

What was worse, Hiccup had a good feeling that he was going to the main attraction this year. He just **knew** that word had reached the other Viking tribes about his killing of the Queen Dragon. Other tribes had dealt with dragon raids in past years and early in the winter, a message had come from their sister tribe asking if Berk had noticed a sudden drop in raids of draconian variety. Stoic's response had been several pages long (amazing that his father could be so chatty on paper) and Hiccup had proof-read it for spelling and accuracy of events. Half the letter was Stoic shamelessly bragging about his son.

After years of complaining, Stoic finally had a reason to be really, truly proud of his only offspring.

Hiccup feared that he would get no privacy during the gather.

"Don't be so crude." Astrid reprimanded him, following it up with a swift but light punch to his shoulder.

"What else do you call a bunch of big strong manly men getting together and showing off how strong they are?" Hiccup asked, flexing his non-existent muscles and puffing out his thin chest. "'My son can shoot down an elk at one hundred paces!'" he said, effecting a fair imitation of the accent used by their more southern cousins before switching to one that sounded very much like his father. "'Well, **my** son killed a dragon that bigger than five longboats! I'll show you the carcass!'" He groaned and out his head in his hands. "Thor have mercy, I'm going to be slaughtered this year."

The blonde Viking rolled her eyes. "No you won't."

"Yes I will! My cousins are huge! You've seen them, right? I get creamed by them every time! And my leg!" He gestured to the peg-leg. "I've had this thing for months now and I still slip in every patch of mud that gets in my way! I can't even run! My evil cousins are going to take me down in a heartbeat! I still have bruises from the last pissing contest!"

"Don't be such a baby." Astrid said, pulling herself into a low crouch and beginning to maneuver around him so she could leave. "You're the mighty Queen Dragon slayer. No one can touch you."

"Hah!" Hiccup let out a mocking laugh. His evil cousins had nothing on the Queen Dragon. Nothing. "Say that again when my cousins have smothered me to death and they're holding my funeral!" he called after her.

"Good night Hiccup." Astrid's farewell was both teasing and sly. Her boots thudded lightly on the wooden steps outside and then faded into the rain.

In the absence of the second body, Hiccup wrapped the fur blanket tighter around his shoulders and scooted closer to the front of the tower. He picked up the spyglass and peered out through the slats to the black ocean beyond. Sitting about in the cold weather was a pain and he was here until an hour after the sun rose, but he liked watch-duty. It had always been one of the few things that he couldn't screw up (unless he fell asleep).

He grinned.

This time last year, Astrid would only have given him a coldly superior look and walked away. She definitely would not have indulged in pointless banter and her teasing him about his small stature would have been condescending rather than light and friendly.

This time last year, Hiccup had been doing everything he could think of to make Astrid think that he was worth her time and attention. This time last year, Astrid had been doing everything in her power to continue ignoring him.

And to think, he had originally believed that the key to getting Astrid's attention was by killing a dragon.

As it turned out, the key had certainly lain with the dragons, but not with killing one. No, not with killing one. He had instead formed a friendship with not just any dragon, but a Night Fury.

Hiccup had changed the whole village.

He was humble about it when eyes were on him. He mumbled that it was no big deal; it was really just a side-effect of killing the Queen Dragon. Which he had done because it meant that the dragons wouldn't have to raid their livestock anymore and the Vikings wouldn't have to kill the oversized lizards and they could all go back to living peacefully. No big deal.

Late at night when he was certain that no one was watching him, he grinned like a maniac. It was a big deal. Shooting Toothless down with the bola cannon had indeed changed everything. More importantly, Hiccup had followed the change through; doing what no Viking had done for centuries. Probably what no Viking had ever thought about doing in a million years.

When no one was looking at him, he felt accomplished. He had done something -- enormous. Something that was so earth-shaking that the world was likely to never been the same again. He would never be quite the same again, either, and not just in a physical way. He had done something immensely important. It had been worth sacrificing his foot for it. At least now, no one had an excuse to call him 'Hiccup the Useless'--

_What's that?_

There was movement on the water. There was something out there, but it was so indistinct that he wasn't sure if he was just imagining it. He pressed the spyglass tighter to his eye, as though it would help him to pierce the darkness and the rolling waves.

Then it vanished.

Hiccup blinked and pulled back from the spyglass, a bewildered frown on his face. It was there and gone so quickly he wasn't sure if he had just imagined it. Sometimes the wind and the waves and the night could play tricks on the eyes.

Wait! There is was again! There **was** something moving out there! The rain was making it very difficult to actually see what it was, but it looked sort of-- boat-shaped. Oh great, one of their boats had gotten loose from its moorings again. He should have expected that. This wasn't the worst storm Berk had ever had, but any rainstorm where it didn't start hailing, one of the boats always decided that it wanted to do a little solo exploration and drifted off.

Hiccup reached up to give the bell two light taps to signal to the other towers that they had a loose boat, when he noticed something else out there on the sea. Something that started off small but grew larger quite rapidly.

He only identified it as flaming pitch when a huge ball of it slammed into the docks. The fireball smashed through the wood, catching bits on fire here and there. The wood was too saturated by the salt water to really, truly burst into flames, but it was no match for a ton of burning animal crap coated in tar and placed in a ceramic container.

Hiccup all but lunged for the bell cord and gave it a great big yank. The bell produced a sound that deafened him and would ring in his head for hours afterward. It wasn't long after that he heard the other three towers picked up the alarm as well. Big-ass fireballs were awfully hard to miss.

He picked up the spyglass again and nearly poked himself in the eye in his haste. Even without the spyglass, he could see the ship properly now. Lanterns were being lit along the length of it. It had already revealed itself with its catapult (what kind of numbnuts put a catapult on a ship anyways?) and there were men scurrying across the deck, hurriedly reloading the catapult for another go.

Through the rain, Hiccup was able to make out the flag that snapped wetly in the strong wind. He only needed a glimpse of the crest on the flag to identify their attackers.

The Anglo-Saxons.

He swallowed hard. With the dragons permanently off the list, it was the Saxons who stepped up to take the role as their worst enemies. Hiccup had heard all the stories. The adults in the village were very fond of telling them--

***crash!***

This time, Hiccup did poke himself in the eye as he looked around for the source of the new explosion. It wasn't very far away. A second load of pitch had taken out the stairs to the watchtower. Only one thing was different. The Saxons in his line of sight hadn't fired yet.

There was a second ship.

"Oh, _c'mon_!" Hiccup groaned, rolling his eyes. He glanced down at the village, what he could see of it at this angle. Already mobilizing; he could see the torch lights wavering in and out of sight. He glanced at the stairs, or rather, the lack thereof. Across the harbor, the stairs of the second watchtower was similarly gone. It looked like they were aiming for the towers.

It also looked like the oldest structures in Berk were going to have to get rebuilt after all.

And that meant that Hiccup himself had probably better get the hell out of dodge.

The towers were set flush to cliff faces for a reason. In case of an emergency where there was a lack of stairs, one could slip out the much wider gap in the back and scramble along the top of the cliff. It was a treacherous, rocky path and certainly not one that Hiccup should have been traversing at night, in the rain, on his false foot. But he did it anyways.

It took him a couple of steps to wonder if this was really such a good idea. No, no it wasn't, but he was hurting for other options. The Saxons weren't going to leave unless they got walloped good, or so Hiccup had heard from his father. He hated their weasely black guts with all his might, but Stoic admired one thing about those smelly dogs and that was the fact they didn't give up without a fight. So a good walloping was needed in order to chase them off. And a Night Fury packed one hell of a wallop. All Hiccup had to do was get back down to the village without breaking a limb.

Which was one of those things that was far easier to say than to actually do. He felt horrifically clumsy as he staggered and stumbled across the slippery rocks, trying everything in his power to keep his footing and prevent himself from falling flat on his face. Evidently, everything in his power wasn't quite enough. He could barely see where he was going. One bad misstep later and he did fall flat on his face.

"Ow!" That was all Hiccup allowed himself before pushing himself with his hands, trying to get his feet back under him. It was not a surprise -- unpleasant but not a surprise, when he realized that he was stuck.

His prosthetic was wedged tightly between two rocks and wiggling it around didn't help. His best option would be to take it off and try to get it out without the rest of his leg getting in the way. It might work, but he would lose time...

Below, the Vikings were fighting back in earnest now. There was a hail of arrows being exchanged by both sides, the dragons were flying to defend their adopted home; some with riders, but most without. Seemed that the dragons had already adopted the stubborn Viking mindset and the tendency to act without first thinking.

The village could hold without him and Toothless in the air for a bit longer, but personally, Hiccup didn't want to wait. He fought hard to get his prosthetic free, but it wasn't budging an inch. The rocks were holding it tight and he couldn't see where it was stuck. Dammit, he was going to have to take it off if he wanted to get anywhere soon.

He leaned his weight on his other leg and reached for the straps that held the false appendage in place. His cold fingers fumbled with the knots, almost numb in the freezing rain. The wet leather was slippery and hard to grasp and he cursed some more. This was taking too long!

Then hot pain exploded in the back of his head.

Everything went black.


	2. Little Savage

**A/N:** I'd like to take this moment and thank all you lovely people for reading. The reviews were quite luminescent and encouraging as well.

This is where I start playing fast and loose with the historical accuracy. History, prepared to be turned pear-shaped!

**Disclaimer:** Quite unfortunately, I do not own _How to Train Your Dragon_. That honor belongs to Dreamworks and Cressida Cowell. That does not, however, stop me from wanting to give Toothless and/or Hiccup a big hug.

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**Valkyrie**

Chapter Two: Little Savage

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When Hiccup woke up, it was to a great deal of surprise at the fact that he had woken up at all. Confusion quickly steam-rolled the surprise. Not a split-second after, he realized he had absolutely no idea where he was, what was going on, or anything like that. And then the pain came tromping up right behind the confusion, body-slamming into him like a mob of Terrible Terrors. They were known to tackle him if Tuffnut wasn't an available target (he was starting to think that was how they showed their affection).

An egg-sized lump at the base of his skull throbbed in time with his heartbeat. He was wholly sick to his stomach too. The whole world was rolling and heaving under him, causing his stomach to roil unpleasant. There was a powerful odor of spoilt fish and a familiar briny sea smell that had him gagging. He tightened his jaw, desperate not to vomit.

Though he strongly suspected he might have already done that. There was an acidic taste on his tongue and his mouth was dry. The foul taste of that nasty "wake-up juice" that Astrid had made him drink was lingering on his lips. He was completely convinced that she had made him drink cow piss. He thanked the gods that he hadn't swallowed any of it.

His hands and wrists ached in a familiar way; the way they did after he had been set to spar against Snotlout and never got the chance to ice them down afterwards. They felt swollen; his wrists in particular. He noticed in a distant sort of way that his arms were partially crossed behind his head, his elbows somewhere about level with his ears.

Hiccup groaned softly and let his eyes slide open. His vision skewed almost instantly and he saw two of everything. The effect was dizzying and he squeezed his eyes shut. His stomach gave a distressing heave as the surface he was sitting on jumped upwards and then down very quickly. He groaned again, this time a little louder. Thundering on the heels of the thought of being sick again was the recognition of his current location. He was on a boat.

The Viking teen wondered how he hadn't recognized the constant rolling motion that was aggravating his nausea. The Vikings were largely a seafaring people and seasickness wasn't something they could afford to have. But Hiccup had never gotten his sea legs. If he was ever chucked onto a boat and expected to accompany his father to some distant location, then one could expect to find the chieftain's son clinging to the railing in the most out of the way location on the ship and occasionally spewing his guts into the water. Stoic had never called this a weakness. He knew that there was really no help for it. His wife would get horribly seasick and would avoid going onto boats if she could help it. He supposed that it just ran in the family.

Hiccup's general tactic towards combating seasickness was to curl up in a fetal position and refuse everything but fresh water until he was back on dry land. This time around, that tactic wasn't going to work as well as it did in the past. He was sitting upright -- kind of; uneven wooden planks were digging into his shoulders and upper back, with a gap between his lower back and the wall. The prosthetic foot was still strapped on, but his legs seemed to have turned into jelly while he was unconscious. And curiously, somewhere amidst rushing sound that dominated the silence, he could hear the jingle of chain links.

***thud***

Hiccup's eyes shot open at the noise. Again, everything in his sight doubled but adrenaline surged through him, temporarily washing away the pain in his head and the dizziness in his stomach. He raised his head, hearing chain links jingle some more. A square of sunlight had fallen on the far side of what he now identified as a cargo-hold, and a foul-smelling one at that. Open crates were scattered in a less than organized manner along the slightly rounded floor, each one reeking of something disgusting. He was certain that they might have been full of fish at one point, but now all the good fish were eaten and only the rotted, unpalatable ones remained, decomposing at the bottom of the crate. The putrid smell was too scattered to be overpowering, but when combined with the rolling motion of the waves, it resulted in an upset stomach for Hiccup. Fortunately enough, he seemed all puked out. All his stomach did was jump about level with his vocal cords before settling back down where it belonged.

Booted feet appeared on the first step of the ladder, blocking out some of the painfully vibrant sunlight. Hiccup stared at the crate nearest to the ladder so he could keep an eye on the feet, which had paused on that first step (the light was ridiculously bright, though his eyes **had** adjusted to the dark first). He could dimly hear two voices exchanging words in low, semi-urgent tones. The creak of oars and ropes, the snapping of the heavy sails, and the steady pound of a drum rendered those words indistinct against the background noise. Then the booted feet continued their descent, bringing with them a strange man.

Hiccup recoiled instinctively, his feet scraping on the floor as he pulled his knees to his chest. Bizarrely, Gobber's words about him being small and weak and less of a target came back to him and he inwardly scoffed at how much they didn't apply right now. He was the only target and this man -- this huge, beastly man looked as though he could break Hiccup in half easily.

The man fairly loomed, despite his shoulders being stooped and his head awkwardly bowed; too tall to stand properly in the low-ceilinged hold. An untrimmed beard grew wildly on his chin, completely hiding his thick neck. His black hair was shaggy and filthy, hanging around his shoulders in complete disarray. His arms were bare and rippling with corded muscles, brown and weathered from much time in the sun. His belly had a paunch; evidence that he was a man who enjoyed his meat and mead a bit more than was recommended and that his arms and legs were the only things that got exercised regularly. There was a sooty kind of smell about him too; overlaid with dirt, sea salt and the strong stench of sweat, among other unpleasant body odors. The smell in the hold was suddenly worse and Hiccup repressed the gag reflex, struggling to keep his digestive fluids where they belonged.

He heard the jingle of chain links a third time and realized in horror that his wrists were manacled to the wall behind him.

Seeing his expression, the huge man chuckled. He moved towards the Viking teen. Each of his steps rolled with the motion of the ship and he barely wavered off balance. He stopped several feet from Hiccup, far enough away that he would be out of range if the Viking lashed out with his legs.

The huge man towered over the much smaller Viking, his head and shoulders seeming to take up almost all of the space. Not for the first time, the teen wished that he had enough muscle to be intimidating and not a dragon-sized toothpick. The sooty, briny, sweaty smell practically rolled off who he presumed to be his captor.

"Awake then." the man said with false joviality. He bared his teeth in what was only a facsimile of a smile. He didn't seem to know how to do it properly. "Hope you're comfortable, little savage."

"Real comfortable." Hiccup said sarcastically between the teeth his gritted together. He was trying not to breathe too deeply. "Something smells awful and I can't tell if it's you or the crates. I'm really hoping it's the crates, because if it's you, that can't be sanitary."

The man's already narrow eyes got really squinty and angry. Hiccup didn't have the chance to protect himself when the man lunged forward and drove his foot hard into the Viking's solar plexus. Air rushed out of his lungs in a choked ***whoosh***. Hiccup curled instinctively, pulling his arms down as far as he could. The chains didn't have much slack in them, but it was enough to bring his arms to shoulder level and angle them protectively towards his chest.

Black spots danced in his vision, partially obscuring the huge man as he kneeled down beside the Viking teen, his face inches from Hiccup's own. A rough, callused hand slapped onto the wall just shy of his ear; so close he could see the muscles working in that thick, hairy arm. It probably wouldn't be too much trouble for the man to wrap that hand around Hiccup's throat and start squeezing.

And that was immensely terrifying.

All Hiccup wanted to do was run, but he couldn't even take a proper breath.

"Don't get too comfortable." the huge man growled menacingly. "We might have to bring you back alive, but he ain't said nothing about bringing you back in one piece. And judging from **that**," His narrow eyes darted down to Hiccup's prosthetic foot. "You can't afford to lose any more pieces. Got me?"

The Viking found the rhythm again and green eyes turned up to regard his captor, fear mingling with anger and hate.

"They'll -- find--" Hiccup gasped, his breath still coming up short.

"Hmm, what was that?" the huge man asked mockingly, sticking a finger into his ear and twisting it around. It came out with an alarming amount of wax that he absently wiped on the leg of his trousers. He leaned closer and a cloying smell wafted from his hair, clearly flecked with bits of dirt. "Didn't understand a word you just said. Speak up."

"They'll -- find -- me." Hiccup said slowly, hoping he wouldn't choke on the odor. Did this man ever bathe? More importantly, had he ever heard of soap? "They'll -- figure out what happened--"

The huge man suddenly burst out laughing, completely drowning out the threat that Hiccup was trying to make. His rank breath washed over the young Viking and practically turned his innards upside down. Then, out of the blue, he punched the teenager in the stomach.

It wasn't nearly as hard as the kick had been, but it still robbed Hiccup of his recovered air. He doubled over again while the man was still laughing. Why did he get the feeling that this time, he had been punched for the fun of it?

His captor must have had issues.

"Hah! You're a bucket of laughs, little savage!" the huge man guffawed, clamping a hand down so tight on Hiccup's arm that he was certain there was going to be bruises left. "Your little -- village," He sneered the word, showing his yellowing teeth. "Is still being sieged even as we speak. Bil's orders are to not let up the attack until nightfall, unless you savages can chase him off before then. But that still gives us a good head-start. And it gets you plenty far away before your friends get their heads screwed back on right way."

Well, Hiccup had issues too. They revolved around being so massively stubborn that he didn't give up for nothing. Because dammit, he was a Viking. Stubbornness issues were practically hereditary.

"What do you want?" he demanded angrily, glaring at the Saxon. "You people haven't raided since before I was born! Why did you capture me?!"

The huge man snorted and withdrew, taking the majority of his foul odor with him. He looked down at Hiccup as though he was just a disobedient puppy who still needed to be broken in.

"Lord Cynerīc will explain everything to you when we get home." he said, his massive arms crossed over his chest. "You just sit tight. Don't cause trouble for us and this'll be an easy voyage."

"Once the village figures out I'm gone... Once they figure out that you-- you Saxons have captured me, it won't be just the village you'll have to worry about. It won't even be me you'll worry about." Hiccup said with a glare that would have melted steel. "You'll have to worry about Toothless."

It was morning -- past morning if the sun was to be believed. Even if there was chaos back in the village, his absence wasn't going to go unnoticed. The village was so used to keeping an eye out for him (just in case) that it was second nature to them. They were going to notice that he wasn't around and it wasn't going to take very long with the sun up.

He was certain that the Night Fury was positively furious by now. Where Hiccup was concerned, Toothless had a protective streak a mile wide. If the Viking teen was sick or hobbling around in pain as a result of his leg, the dragon was an overbearing mother hen -- even more so than Stoic in his more accomplished moments of fatherhood. At times like those, Toothless saw him as a hatchling who needed to be protected and instinct took over from there.

And it would just figure that the one night Hiccup had managed to get away for watch-duty without waking the dragon up, was the night his entire world got shot to hell. He was chained in the rank-smelling cargo hold of a Saxon ship with an equally rank-smelling Saxon man who was posturing and making threats that may or may not have been empty. He was probably miles away from Berk; no chance of swimming back even if he got loose of these chains.

He still didn't know why the Saxons were suddenly so interested in him.

However, the huge man didn't see the threat for what it was. Quite the opposite, really. He burst into another round of laughter, surprisingly harsh and grating, a hand loudly slapping his thigh in his mirth.

"Toothless? _Toothless_?" he repeated incredulously. He was laughing so hard there were tears in his eyes. "That's a terrible name! Even for a savage! What's he gonna do? Gum my fingers off?!"

_Toothless is a dragon!_ Hiccup almost shouted it out loud, but by Odin he kept his mouth shut. He didn't want his captor to know that he had gotten under the Viking's skin. He didn't want to hear the Saxon making jabs at his dragon -- at his best friend. _And you are you calling a savage anyways? I take a bath every week! What about you?! And at least Toothless doesn't smell like something that's died and rotten!_

The huge man stopped laughing abruptly, like a switch had been thrown. All traces of mirth were wiped from his face. His demeanor shifted from that mocking friendliness to one of downright loathing. He hadn't really been hiding his true feelings on the matter of the Viking, but this seemed like the first time he was really showing them.

"Let me make one thing clear to you, little savage." the huge man said with a deadly glower. "No one -- and I mean **no one**, is coming for you. Not now, not ever."

"You're lying." Hiccup hissed defiantly.

"You're going to wish I was." the huge man said. His eyes were lit up by a funny, kind of dangerous gleam. "We're miles and miles away from your little village now. You might as well make yourself comfortable because you're in for the long haul."

He leaned over the Viking teen, his massive muscles bulging and flexing like snakes. Hiccup felt extraordinarily insignificant.

"Where you're going, no one is going to find you."

* * *

Years later in his life, Hiccup doubted that he would ever be able to tell anyone about how he had managed to survive the crossing to the landmass that the Anglo-Saxons called home. Quite frankly, other than the stubborn will to keep on living and get back home, there wasn't a lot of motivation. The conditions were abhorrent and there were dead rats in a corner. If the rats couldn't even survive on the meager amounts of unspoiled food, that had to be a bad sign.

Worse still was that the Saxons cared very little for his well-being and they made no secret of it. They avoided the cargo hold if they could and if they couldn't, then they stomped around, threw dirty looks at him like their presence down there was his fault and loudly grumbled highly uncomplimentary things about him, clearly not caring if he could hear them or not. They always muttered about how he was supposed to be alive at the end of the journey and acted like this was a large burden. They also didn't care how alive he was going to be at the end of the journey. Every day, Hiccup got the same sinking feeling that he was going to be half-dead by the time they got to where they were going.

The food they fed him spoke for itself. Twice a day they brought him this watery mush of a porridge-like substance and forced it down his throat. Hiccup would compare the texture to that of cardboard if he happened to know what cardboard was. Suffice to say, this porridge crap had very little taste of its own and choking it down was a chore.

Keeping it down was a battle he typically lost. Whatever made it into his stomach was often evicted less than an hour later by his nausea. Given no chance to make an attempt to obtain his sea legs, Hiccup stayed thoroughly seasick. It became less severe as he grew accustomed to the ship's constant rocking motion and sometimes he could ignore it when he only had water, but the sight of food caused his stomach to turn upside down. So he stayed hungry and learned to ignore the gnawing on his insides.

If the Saxons didn't need him alive (for whatever reason), then he would say that they were trying to kill him.

Hiccup also preferred not to think about taking care of particular bodily functions. The Saxons must have thought that their ship stunk enough as it was, because they had provided him with a bucket. Several times during the day, they brought him a bucket; the same bucket. They plunked it down in front of him, freed one of his hands and watched him intently until he was finished or until he announced that he was not in need of the bucket at that moment. At night, they left the bucket nearby and returned in the morning to empty it.

It was awful, the whole affair. Being watched when you were trying to do something like that. Hiccup had never thought it would be so hard to empty his bowels (not that much came out; not much food went in, first of all). He wished he knew how long it would be before they arrived; if just so he could get back to do that sort of business in private again.

He tried to keep track of the days as they passed. When the sunlight disappeared from the cargo hold and the thumping footsteps on the deck overhead began to taper off, he would scratch another line into the wood with the sharper edge of his prosthetic foot. He kept this up successfully for about seven days; seven squiggly lines carved into the floor. Seven days from Berk. Perhaps seven days before the village caught up to the ship.

Then, on the eighth day, he had drifted into a nap when the sun had been in the cargo hold. It had still been there when he had woken back up. He had no way of knowing how long he had been asleep and was therefore unsure if he was still on the eighth day or if the ninth day had come without his knowing. Hiccup hadn't marked an eighth line. He didn't mark any lines after that.

He didn't know anymore how long they had been traveling. He knew that the Saxons' land was far, far to the south of his own. He knew that it would take time before they made landfall again. The number thirty hovered around in the back of his consciousness and blew raspberries at him, but he refused to believe that so many days had passed.

It didn't help that thirty days sounded about right.

The days ran together like thick honey, the monotony punctured by the infrequent visits of his largely inhospitable captors. The huge, beastly man returned to check on him several times and it was on one of these visits that Hiccup learned two things about the man. One: His name was Ketelbern. And two: He was a blacksmith who had made the chains holding the Viking teen to the wall. What a blacksmith was doing so far from his forge was something that went right over Hiccup's head. Gobber took a great deal of pride in his work and never left the forge unless it was necessary. He had impressed this manner of thinking upon Hiccup and while it had not sunk in to the level that Gobber was at, the Viking teen was still a craftsman at heart.

Hiccup tried to keep himself occupied. He tapped out rhythms on the floor and clinked the iron manacles together until they shouted at him to cut it out. He stared at the whorls in the wood planks until he was certain that he could see faces in them staring back at him (and grew rather paranoid of one that looked like an old man's face had turned to melting wax). He tried to lose himself in his head, where he could at least pretend that he wasn't chained and likely heading towards his doom. He had an active imagination -- an overactive one for a Viking. It had served him well in designing and improving Toothless's harness and tail fin. It had been very useful in figuring out what sort of harness to design for the Nadders, Zipplebacks and Nightmares (his designs had gotten very creative, but they had worked). It was being downright troublesome now; supplying him with images of things he was trying very hard not to think about.

The Saxons never left their captives alive for long. That was what the adults had told them. The Saxons always killed; always wanting to take revenge on the Vikings for the raids **they** (the Vikings) had conducted on the Saxons in decades past. Raids that were no longer a part of living memory, but remained common knowledge nonetheless.

Hiccup kept wondering how he would die.

He told himself over and over that the village was coming after him; that his father was mounting a rescue. They would catch up on dragon-back, a longboat lingering less than fifty yards behind and waiting. They would raid the ship and remind the Saxons why the Vikings had been the first to conquer years and years and years ago. Then they would retrieve him and blow the Saxons to smithereens. And then he would be on his way back home before he knew it.

No matter how much he didn't believe it, he told himself that every night before let himself drift to sleep.

Hiccup had several vivid dreams on the matter, but none of them turned into reality. They became less and less vibrant and hopeful as the days worn on. He didn't want to say that that Ketelbern fellow was right, but it seemed that he was. No one was coming for him.

His regular nightmare hadn't left him alone either. It occurred with less frequency because he was too exhausted to care too much (how he could be exhausted after doing nothing for extended periods of time, he didn't know), but it was there all the same. The contents had changed very slightly, incorporating the smell of the cargo hold alongside the iron tang, as well as the ache in his wrists that had not quite left him alone.

In short, Hiccup spent the entire voyage huddled in chains at the bottom of the cargo hold in the most miserable little ball imaginable. He hardly stirred from a now-familiar semi-conscious daze unless someone touched him; an event that was limited to the large man (larger than Ketelbern, but in the realm of fat rather than muscle) who held his head still so another Saxon could shove that tasteless porridge mush down his throat.

So when a hand clamped down on his lower arm, Hiccup reacted with a traditional Viking-attack-first-ask-questions-later.

He bit the arm of the person who had grabbed him.

"Aaah! Little savage!"

And was slapped across the face for doing so.

Ketelbern's hand was still clamped around Hiccup's arm, just below the manacled wrist. He was glaring at the Viking teen with a new level of hatred and a bite mark on his arm. Hiccup hadn't broken skin (Ketelbern's skin was too thick for that), but he could very clearly see the indents left by his teeth. He felt very proud of himself, despite the stinging pain in his cheek.

"Rotten little savage!" Ketelbern spat, an iron ring of keys jangling in his other hand. "All the work we put in to keep you alive and this is how you repay us?!"

"Try harder..." Hiccup snarled. He was startled at the amount of venom in his tone. Then again... Though the blacksmith's visits had been infrequent, he had always managed to make Hiccup angry without expending much effort. "What are you doing?" he demanded, eyeing the key ring.

"Shut up." Ketelbern snapped, stabbing the appropriate key into the lock and twisting it with more force than necessary. The pressure from the manacle loosened and Hiccup's hand slid limply out of the iron ring's grasp. His eyes flickered down to the reddened skin of his wrist. He had done his best to not pull on the bindings, knowing that he could pull off all his skin that way. But even for his best efforts, his flesh still looked slightly swollen and there were small scrapes ringing his wrist like a bracelet.

"If I had my way," the huge man went on, shoving the loose manacle out of the way. "I'd keep you locked up here another couple days. Let you die of starvation. Teach you some respect."

Hiccup didn't see how your captors letting you die of starvation could possibly teach you some respect for said captors.

"Lucky for you, Lord Cynerīc thinks you're valuable." the blacksmith snorted. He probably thought the whole idea of a Viking being valuable in any manner was a load of hogwash. He glowered at the teen. "Should have stamped you out before the bitch carried to term."

An abrupt wash of bone-deep anger wiped away all the exhaustion, stress, and general bad feelings that had been bothering him for the past month. Suddenly poisonous green eyes turned on the blacksmith with an expression of such fury that would have had Stoic weeping with pride.

Hiccup didn't know his mother. He had never met her. She had died well before he was old enough to form coherent memories. What he did know of her was generic; that she was strong, capable and fiercely independent, like other Viking women. And that she could deliver a punch that could break your jaw, according to Gobber. Hiccup figured that she had to have been very well-endowed if her _breastplate_ could be turned into two helmets. With the lack of information, he was left to form his own opinion of her and he liked to keep it as positive as possible.

And he **did not** like it when she was spoken ill of. Especially not by someone who just might have been responsible for her death.

Hiccup had been raised as a Viking in a Viking village with more than two hundred years of Viking history affecting his upbringing. And that meant, regardless of how differently-minded he was from his peers, he was still a Viking. He still subscribed to the 'eye-for-an-eye' mentality.

And when a Viking's honor was impugned while they were not present, the only thing left to do was for the next-of-kin attack on their behalf.

In a heartbeat, Hiccup decided that he would not be responsible for what happened next.

He ignored his still-manacled hand. He ignored his exhaustion and hunger. He ignored everything that was slowing him down -- physically, mentally, emotionally -- and attacked.

He bit, he scratched, he punched and gouged to the best of his abilities, drawing on every ounce of strength that still remained. It was far more than his knee-jerk reaction of simply biting Ketelbern. This was an honest desire to cause the man no small amount of pain and make him suffer for making Hiccup suffer that would have made the entire _village_ weep with pride for Stoic's heir.

Hiccup had drawn blood by the time Ketelbern realized what was going on.

"Aargh! Loathsome little savage!"

Ketelbern's bloodied fist connected hard with Hiccup's face, sending the Viking reeling back and out of attack mode. Then he drew the hunting knife from his belt and held it to the Viking's throat. Hiccup's well-ingrained survival instincts kicked in; he tried to run. The manacle dug into his wrist and prevented him from even gaining more than a couple inches of space from the volatile blacksmith.

"I should kill you!" Ketelbern threatened, quivering with rage. "I should kill you right here! You're more trouble than you're worth!" He pressed the blade further to Hiccup's neck, not enough to break skin, but the threat was there. "I don't know why Lord Cynerīc thinks you'll be useful! He should have left well enough alone!"

Hiccup said nothing. If the last month had taught him anything, it was that the Saxons were under orders to keep him alive. Orders from whoever this 'Lord Cynerīc' was. No matter how angry they got with him; no matter how much they hated his very existence, they couldn't kill him. They just couldn't.

He smiled grimly and spat the blood out of his mouth.


	3. A Foul Stench

**A/N:** The Norse Vikings were actually a pretty hygienic lot. They took baths every Sunday and combed their hair every day. Meanwhile, the Anglo-Saxons believed that taking baths -- especially during the winter -- made you more susceptible to diseases. Can you imagine the _smell_?

**Disclaimer:** Quite unfortunately, I do not own _How to Train Your Dragon_. That honor belongs to Dreamworks and Cressida Cowell, although I really must to give Hiccup a big hug (and a cookie) for being such a good sport about this chapter.

* * *

**Valkyrie**

Chapter Three: A Foul Stench

* * *

Ketelbern brandished the key ring again and unlocked the other cuff. He was growling under his breath the whole time. The heavy manacle fell away and the blacksmith stowed the keys in a pouch on his belt. Right at his side under his hand where it would be hard to sneak away without attracting his attention.

"Get up!"

He returned the hunting knife to its scabbard with an ugly grimace plastered all over his face. His fingers twitched around the leather-wrapped handle and then he let go of it very slowly. His black eyes burned into Hiccup's own green, warning him.

"And wipe that smile off your face!"

Hiccup's smile gained a slightly sharper edge before he let it slide off his face. It wasn't going to do him any good to antagonize the blacksmith, however unintentionally. All the Saxons said was that he just needed to be alive. That did not necessarily equate to needing him conscious. And he had spent plenty of the last month being unconscious, thank you very much.

He rubbed his sore, reddened wrists gently, wincing at the tenderness and apparent fragility of his skin. It felt like it he rubbed too hard, the skin would simply break open. But at the same time, it seemed that it he didn't rub hard enough, the pain would never go away. There was an uncomfortable throb pulsing in the battered joint, giving the unnerving impression that his hands were going to drop off at any moment.

"Have you gone deaf?" Ketelbern growled, his face going red under the tangled beard. "I said, get up! Stand up!"

He seized the Viking by the arm and yanked him to his mismatched feet. Hiccup wobbled dangerously when the blacksmith released him. The boat's swaying was hardly noticeable now, though there was an odd thud at regular intervals that seemed to jar the entire ship's frame. But his legs weren't managing the balancing act all by themselves. He quickly shifted his weight to his good leg and leaned his body against the wall. He hadn't really used his legs all that much in past month, except for moving them around and stretching them out so they wouldn't get stiff.

Hiccup looked up at the blacksmith, wondering what was to happen next. Ketelbern was glaring at him with a most impatient expression and his narrow eyes darted down to the Viking's feet.

"Are you waiting for an invitation? Walk!" the huge man snarled, giving the smaller teen a hearty shove.

Hiccup careened sideways from the shove, only managing about two complete steps in the direction of the ladder before his balance teetered precariously to the side. Ketelbern gave a wordless snarl, seized the Viking by the arm and started to drag him towards the cargo hold's exit. Hiccup staggered along after him, trying to get his wobbly legs to cooperate long enough to get his feet under him so he could walk properly, but the blacksmith was taking long strides, crossing the distance to the ladder in what seemed like just a few steps.

Ketelbern shoved the Viking teen up the ladder and onto a deck that was bathed in late-evening light. The western horizon was sprinkled with stars. Hiccup blinked a little in the dying sunlight and stared at the sky. For the first time in a while, he felt like he actually _knew_ what was going on. He had been kept in the dark -- quite literally. Finally being outdoors again was a liberating sensation. He would have liked to stand there and admire the open sky above him a little longer, but Ketelbern clamped a large hand over his shoulder and pushed him forward.

A rush of noise later and Hiccup realized they had docked. The ship was moored tightly to the pier by bundles of thick ropes. There were men who were somehow even dirtier than Ketelbern wrapping up fishing nets and pushing carts full of dead sea creatures away from the docks. Narrow, muddy streets were lined with cottages of varying sizes and shapes, all with thatched roofs and stone chimneys. Smoke rose from almost every chimney, turning the air slightly hazy. It was a sizeable town surrounded by rounded hilltops that gave the impression that the horizon was closing in on you. It was bigger than his village and much more compact.

The blacksmith's grip tightened sharply as he led Hiccup down the gangplank. He was holding on unnecessarily hard; like he didn't trust that the captive Viking wasn't going to try and make a run for it now that they were back on dry land.

Hiccup did consider running. For all of a split second. He vetoed the idea on the grounds that he probably wouldn't get very far and if he did, he would probably get mauled and eaten by the local wildlife before he could figure out which way home was. There were probably dragons around here too. And they wouldn't be nearly as friendly as the ones back home.

Anyways, he wanted to know what was going on.

All too soon, he was getting his wish. Ketelbern hauled him across town by the scruff of his vest. The town was really a squalid-looking little place; nasty, smelly and the streets were crowded out by the houses and other buildings. There was hardly enough room for three men to walk abreast and Ketelbern cut a large swath through the thinning throng of people. He really hoped that this was mud they were walking through. It had an unusual consistency that was not typical of mud.

He still hoped it was mud.

At the very end of the road was easily the largest building, standing on the edge of town. It towered over its neighbors, boasting a third level. It was probably the Saxon equivalent of a mead hall, judging from the amount of music and laughter that was pouring out the open doors. Warm, flickering golden light shone from wide open windows and there was the particularly appetizing aroma of sizzling meat wafting out. Hiccup's stomach emitted a twisted and slightly tortured-sounding moan at the first whiff of the tantalizing scent. Ketelbern sent him this sideways look as if sternly telling him to shut up. He rolled his eyes in return. There was no way he could make his stomach shut up.

The blacksmith shoved him none-too-gently through the doors of the great hall, one hand still holding tightly to his collar. Hiccup shuffled forward -- he had no choice in the matter -- and intruded onto a scene that could be described as demons dancing wildly around the fires of Hell.

The image faded almost as soon as it manifested and all Hiccup saw were women clad in tight-fitting dresses with a low cut that made him blush and men that were either in loose tunics or next to nothing at all. Some were eating that deliciously smelling meat (beef, chicken, and mutton, if he wasn't mistaken), sopping bread through the gravy and drinking deeply from large tankards. The dancers were all madly cutting capers around an enormous bonfire that raged in the center of the hall. They danced to the beat of a lively tune, strummed by a troupe of musicians in the corner.

The smell of sweat was atrocious.

It was the second thing Hiccup noticed. The hot, damp atmosphere rolled over him like an ocean wave and he staggered back a step. Ketelbern, on the other hand, appeared completely unaffected. He looked around, putting his massive height to good use as he looked over the heads of the constantly shifting crowd. Then his own head tilted in a nod.

A heavy tankard -- one that was still half full of a dark liquid that spilled out -- sailed across the room and struck one of the musicians clean upside the head, bringing the music to a stuttering halt.

From the very center of the madness, a man sprang to his feet, flinging his arms wide. He had high cheekbones, immaculate skin, and a thin skeleton covered in wiry muscles and pointy ends; his knees and elbows looked oddly dangerous. He wore the highest-quality clothes of finely spun wool. Judging from the way silence dropped in a number of places throughout the hall, he was someone of importance.

"Get out! All of you! Out! Now!" he shouted, waving his hands at the crowd like a shepherd trying to get his flock of sheep to obey. "I have urgent business that absolutely cannot wait! Clear out! The lot of you! Go home! Get!"

There was a quiet, collective groan and some disappointed mutterings, but the people moved to take their leave. They put down their food and drink, the musicians collected their instruments, parents gathered up their children and they all shuffled out in droves. Odd looks were cast every now and then towards Hiccup, but the majority of the passerbys simply shrugged and didn't spare him another glance. The last person to leave shut the doors when he walked out. This left just Hiccup, Ketelbern and the man who had shooed everyone away.

"As you requested, Lord Cynerīc." Ketelbern announced, just the barest trace of a growl in his voice. He gave the Viking teen another shove forward, releasing him this time.

So **this** was Lord Cynerīc. He didn't look at all like what Hiccup had been expecting. Granted, he had been expecting a Ketelbern look-alike -- lots of brawn and vast tangles of hair. Instead he got someone with pale hair cut short around his neck, not the slightest sign of a beard and who was almost as skinny as himself. Taller, but still dreadfully bony. His hands were wide, his fingers long and spidery. They were constantly fidgeting and flicking like the legs of an insect in the throes of death, even as he marched up to Hiccup, looking at him with abounding interest.

Lord Cynerīc started to circle him like the carrion birds Hiccup had seen on occasions, hovering above days-old kills. His dark eyes flickered up and down, his hands shoving the Viking back in place when Hiccup tried to turn on spot to follow the man's circular progress. He looked over the teen's shoulders, back, down to his legs and his mismatched feet. He even pushed the Viking's head down to look at the back of his neck. A disapproving clucking noise issued from the man's mouth. It made Hiccup shudder to realize that he was being _inspected_.

"Ketelbern," Lord Cynerīc had come to stand in front of Hiccup. He was frowning at the Viking teen, looking quite flustered. A hand rested on his chin. "What is-- What is _this_?"

Obviously, the Saxon lord did not like what he had found.

"Sir, what is what?" Ketelbern inquired in a remarkably polite voice that still held a trace of a growl.

"This! What is -- _this_?" The Saxon lord made several broad gestures towards Hiccup. "I'm asking you what _this_ is!"

"You just gestured to all of me." Hiccup felt obliged to point out. The old familiar feeling of inadequacy returned, accompanied by the anger he always felt whenever someone felt compelled to point out that everything about him was wrong.

"Have you even got the right person?" Lord Cynerīc asked the blacksmith, completely ignoring the teenager. "I'd hate to think that you've wasted all this time and resources just to come back with the wrong person!"

"We had our eyes on that savage's village for weeks! I've never been more sure of something in my life! That's the boy!" Ketelbern replied, crossing his massive arms.

"But this is--" Lord Cynerīc folded his arms over his chest as well, one hand covering his mouth. He was slowly shaking his head in something like disappointment. "You've brought me a toothpick."

"I brought you the right boy!" Ketelbern shouted, his face flushing a brilliant shade of red. "I can guarantee that!"

The Saxon lord was still shaking his head. "There are so many things wrong with this, I'm not sure where I should begin." he said, tossing a hand out dismissively. "I was expecting something so much different."

"You weren't the only one." Hiccup muttered, rolling his eyes.

"You are a Viking, aren't you?" Lord Cynerīc looked sharply down at his unwilling guest. "From Berk, that horrible little spit of land that freezes solid in the winter, correct?"

"What, you've been to Berk often enough to find that out?" Hiccup wondered, taken slightly off-guard by the news. Perhaps he shouldn't have been so surprised, though. The Saxons had spent a good decade hammering away at them in an effort to get revenge before giving up.

"I assure you; I didn't enjoy it." Lord Cynerīc replied flatly. "But let me rephrase my question. Are you the boy who tames dragons?"

Hiccup nodded slowly. Personally, he thought "tame" was a bit of a stretch. You could no more tame a dragon than you could tame another human being. He hadn't even considered riding Toothless until he was sure that the Night Fury trusted him and was not going to bite off any important body parts. The village was still working on building trust with the dragons they had once hunted so zealously and for the adults, at least, the progress was slow.

"You? The great dragon tamer of Berk?" The Saxon lord snorted in disbelief, his twitching fingers plucking compulsively at the collar of his tunic. "Ever since I first heard of you, I looked forward to meeting you. I imagined someone -- taller. With more muscles and plenty of brains. A savant, rather than a savage. Instead, I get _this_." Another broad gesture to all of Hiccup. "Do you know how insulting this is?"

"Not as insulting as you're being right now." Hiccup replied irritably.

"You're the size of a twig." Lord Cynerīc informed him flatly. "Your brain is probably proportionate to the rest of you and you're already missing a foot. You don't even look like a Viking!" His expression morphed from disbelief to anger so fast that Hiccup thought he had imagined the transition. "And you're still making us look like incompetent fools!"

His twitching fingers snatched a handful of Hiccup's vest, nearly yanking him off his mismatched feet.

"Tell me how you do it!" he demanded. "How do you tame a dragon? What's the secret?"

"Secre-- There is no secret!" Hiccup shot back. Except for killing their domineering queen, but he didn't think that counted here. "You can't out and out _tame_ a dragon! That's impossible! If they get startled or angry, they're just going to revert back to their base instincts and attack!"

"Rather like you savages; no wonder you get along so well." Lord Cynerīc sneered. He released the Viking, pushing him back in disgust. He looked at his hands, grimaced, and then wiped them down his trousers.

Hiccup scowled, clenching his fists. He was tired of being referred to as a "savage". He was hardly savage. Stubborn as hell, yes. But he was cleaner than this lot; even after a month of not touching water or soap. The Saxon lord was fairly reeking of perfume, but that still didn't quite cover up the stench of something unwashed and abhorrently smelly.

"What is going on?" the Viking teen demanded through gritted teeth. "You've dragged me from my village and no one's told me the reason why! I don't understand what you want from me!"

Lord Cynerīc's expression flickered, his dark eyes blackened and his hands clenched spastically into fists. He lunged at Hiccup with a guttural growl. The Viking teen instinctively stepped back, balancing on his prosthetic foot, but he had forgotten about Ketelbern behind him. The blacksmith's hand landed squarely between Hiccup's shoulder blades, stopping his retreat cold. The Saxon lord's long fingers wrapped around his wrist. He didn't stop there; he kept moving forward, never breaking stride. Hiccup was spun around dizzyingly fast. His good leg slammed down just in time to catch up.

"Of course you wouldn't understand! There's no way on this green earth that you could comprehend what we've been through!" Lord Cynerīc ranted, ripping open the doors of the great hall and dragging the Viking out into the deepening twilight. Ketelbern followed. "You raided us time and again! You burnt down our homes! Stole our women and children! Dogged us mercilessly until we cringed at the mere mention of your existence!"

With smooth, determined strides, Lord Cynerīc hung an immediate right so fast that Hiccup barely avoided falling into the questionable mud-like substance on the ground. They marched past the great hall, following the mud-strewn path out into the hilly region surrounding the town. One particular hill stood out from the others due to its incredible width. They probably could have fit the entire town on top of it with room to spare. And then there was the fact that its top looked like it had been hacked off by an axe.

Hiccup squirmed, his wrist twisting under the Saxon's bruising grip as he struggled to break free. Breaking the opponent's hold on you was a lesson that was always taught in childhood, but it wasn't one that he had stuck around to learn. Now he really wished that he hadn't skipped out on those lessons to go hunting for trolls instead!

"Then we found the dragons. They were a godsend! That's what we thought at first." Lord Cynerīc went on, anger and resentment coloring his tone quite vividly. "Powerful, fire-breathing lizards; some with poisonous fangs, others with razor-sharp claws. A swift death to anyone who crossed paths with one. It was perfect! It was just what we needed to put you savages back where you belonged! You know what happened next?" he asked, shooting a sharp glare over his shoulder.

Hiccup shook his head.

"Nothing! It didn't work! Nothing worked!" Lord Cynerīc found a small rock and kicked it a good twenty feet ahead. It bounced off a pair of wooden, double doors that had been built into the side of that wide, flat-topped hill. They were probably wide enough to accommodate a Monstrous Nightmare.

"One hundred years we've captured dragons! One hundred years we've worked to tame those beasts! One hundred years and we've barely had any success! Any dragon we break is still impulsive and disobedient! We have to fight with them just to get them to accept us touching them! Never mind a saddle! Never mind a bit! Never mind any of that! For all our hard work-- We still can't destroy you!"

He let out a scream of rage and threw the teen against the double doors. Hiccup hit them with a hollow ***thud***, rattling the chains holding the doors shut. He regained his balance quickly, scrambling back to his feet to face the Saxon lord and straightened his shoulders. Intuition told him to maintain a confident front; to look unafraid, unruffled. He couldn't let on that his innards were twisting up on themselves; that his heart was pounding so hard that he thought it might burst; that locking his knees was the only way to keep them from quaking.

This was worse than when he had almost been killed by the Monstrous Nightmare in his graduation ceremony. He didn't know how, but it was worse. Probably because he knew what to expect from death by a Nightmare; teeth, claws, or fire and it would be quick.

But from another human...

"And then _**you**_!" Lord Cynerīc boomed, drawing himself up. His hands were fisted tightly at his sides. "You turn up on a miserable little island in the middle of nowhere, riding a Night Fury-- A _Night Fury_! -- and acting like everyone oughta fall at your feet and worship you!"

"I do not act like that!"

"In a few short months, you accomplish with hundreds of dragons what we can barely manage with just a dozen!" Lord Cynerīc shouted over him, his face now a brilliant red. "What do you have that we don't?"

Spittle flew from his lips. He heaved angry breaths as he waited for the answer he so dearly wanted to hear. He had been waiting all winter for this. He knew there was a trick to it. A trick that these savages had discovered but weren't going to share with anyone else. He knew that he was going to hear of it, one way or another. He wasn't going to let this Viking go until he knew it.

Hiccup said absolutely nothing.

"Very well. I'm a patient man." Lord Cynerīc said in a would-be calm tone. He nodded to his blacksmith.

Ketelbern stepped up and retrieved the key ring from his belt pouch again. He examined the keys for a moment and then selected the one that was slightly longer and more jagged-looking than the others. He inserted the key into the padlock and twisted. The padlock clicked open and Ketelbern unwound the chains from the handles. He pulled the doors open. Dry air wafted out of the dark hole, accompanied by a familiar, musty smell that Hiccup couldn't quite place...

"Inside." Ketelbern made an 'after-you' gesture.

"W-What?" Hiccup jerked back from the doorway. Were they going to lock him in there?

"Stupid savage is deaf." Ketelbern muttered, sharing a knowing look with Lord Cynerīc. "Get in there, you useless runt!" he roared.

Getting shoved around seemed to be the theme of the day. The blacksmith swatted Hiccup on the back with one large hand, sending him staggering forward, just inside the doors. Lord Cynerīc placed his body on the threshold and looked down at Hiccup imperiously.

"You're going to stay here, savage. You're going to stay here for as long as it takes." he announced.

"For as long as what takes?" Hiccup asked, almost fearing the answer.

And when he heard it, he figured that he was quite right to fear it.

Lord Cynerīc gazed down at him, coldly superior.

"You're going to tame our dragons."


	4. The Dragon Compound

**A/N:** Sweet jabeebus, this chapter was something of an arse-kicker. I couldn't figure out where to end it, I kept getting hung up on trying to picture the dragons in my head and it was driving me nuts. It should be noted that I have never read the books (though I plan on it if I can find them), the _How to Train Your Dragon_ wiki was not as helpful as I'd hoped and I'm definitely no artist. All the dragons that Hiccup will encounter are canon to the universe, but outside of the six that are seen in the movie, I've got nothing to go off of for the others. So I had to make stuff up. Probably way off the mark too.

**Disclaimer:** Quite unfortunately, I do not own _How to Train Your Dragon_. That honor belongs to Dreamworks and Cressida Cowell. But I own my evil Saxon characters! Yay!

* * *

**Valkyrie**

Chapter Four: The Dragon Compound

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Hiccup slept hard that night, exhaustion claiming him so fast that he woke up with no real memory of falling asleep in the first place. It was like he had simply blinked and the whole night passed him by. He hated it when that happened. It always made him feel like he had gotten no sleep at all. If he went around deliberately ignoring the fact that he felt slightly more chipper than he had the night before, that is.

He wrapped his arms a little tighter around his head to block out the dim light that filtering in. Actually, he felt a great deal more chipper now than he had this time yesterday. It was amazing what a full night of uninterrupted sleep could do for a person.

That didn't mean, however, that he wanted to get up and start moving about right away. He was perfectly content to stay laying down a little while longer and indulge in the fact that the ground was not moving all over the place. He didn't feel any throes of nausea and there was no loud shouting disturbing the peace and quiet. For a moment, he could pretend that he was back home, sleeping on the floor instead of his bed.

Of course, the lack of a saliva-coated morning wake up call in the form of a tongue belonging to a certain Night Fury who wanted a brisk morning flight before breakfast rather murdered the illusion.

Hiccup didn't even get to enjoy the momentary amnesia where he completely forgot his situation. No, the fact that he had been captured by Saxons sat quite prominently at the forefront of his mind from the second he had returned to consciousness. He didn't see how he could possibly forget. Swimming around right up there with that knowledge were the stories about the Saxons that the village elders liked to tell when they had nothing else to talk about.

The Saxons had spent a good three decades or so conducting raids on the Vikings in order to get revenge for past transgressions. They burnt down entire villages and ran off with the women and children they had caught unawares, making a rather severe dent in the overall population. The village elders always quoted those decades as being the worst years. Dragon raids had been at their highest peak and there simply hadn't been enough Vikings to hold off both the Saxons and the dragons at the same time. Particularly when the Saxons chose to conduct their raids exactly when the dragons were making their moves on the livestock.

Sometimes, when telling these stories, the elders would look at Hiccup like he was a godsend. He had eventually learned that the very last Saxon raid had occurred shortly after his birth and for a while, it was assumed that he would grow to be a great warrior and a magnificent Viking.

At least until reality had set in.

It was also the raid his mother had died in.

Arguably, the correct term was "disappeared", seeing as she had simply vanished into the heat of the battle and didn't come back out of it (again, according to Gobber). But the Saxons always killed their captives. Maybe the they tossed their captives onto the boats first and went a ways out to sea before doing the deed. Or chucked them overboard and let the unforgiving ocean do the job for them. Or maybe they took them back home for a nice, cheery public execution and made a spectacle out of it.

But they always killed.

Hiccup just happened to be an exception to the rule. Because they needed him to tame their dragons.

Taming dragons, hah! The notion was laughable, because you couldn't tame a dragon. There was just no way. It was impossible. You could _train_ a dragon, yes. They weren't completely adverse to harnesses and saddles and a rider to boot. In fact, they appeared to enjoy it more than the human did, though some found the idea of saddles and harnesses to be very irritating.

But to try and _tame_ a dragon in every known definition of the word? That would be like- Well, it would be like trying to tame Astrid. Hiccup certainly couldn't tame Astrid. She'd separate his head from the rest of his body with that humongous axe of hers if he so much as thought about it. Toothless was his friend just like Astrid was his friend. You couldn't tame your friends.

_The Saxons are completely mental. They have to be._ Hiccup thought, raising his head. He wiped a night's worth of grit from his eyes and slowly started to pick himself up off the hard-packed dirt that was masquerading at the ground. His left knee gave an ungainly wobble and he automatically shifted his weight to his right leg. He had never slept (actually properly slept) with the prosthetic still attached and it was probably not the best of ideas. It made his leg unusually sore and stiff.

He stretched uncomfortably, shaking off the stiffness from all the muscles across his back and limbs. He must have been so dead asleep that he had just lain in one position all night. It certainly felt like it.

Mid-morning light shone down into the hollowed-out hill. Hiccup looked up to see where it was coming from. It turned out he was right about the top of the hill being hacked off. Replacing the hill's crest was a grid-work of thick wooden beams. The sky was a pale, robin's egg blue, dusted by the high-flying cirrus clouds. The gaps in the grid-work looked big enough for him to slip through, provided he ever found a way to reach them. It had to be a good thirty or forty feet over his head.

"How long did it take them to do this?" he wondered, stepping away from the doors where he had slept all night. Years to accomplish, he imagined, but to prevent the entire hillside from simply collapsing inwards must have been a great feat. He didn't seen any immediate reinforcements like pillars or support struts along the walls, but they had to be around. The mead hall back home was still standing because of the architectural design, but the Saxons might have hollowed this entire hill out by hand.

"And why... is this so familiar?"

There was a prickling, nagging thought in the back of his mind that he had seen all this before. Or some of it. It was still very familiar; he couldn't shake that thought. The tang of iron was heavy on the air. He could almost taste it on the back of his tongue. Other smells that nearly set off his gag reflex. And warm air... Warm air brushed rhythmically across his neck, ruffling his hair.

Hiccup cringed. No, this was familiar. This was so familiar- It couldn't possibly-!

In retrospect, he shouldn't have turned around so fast. Not without knowing exactly **what** was breathing down the back of his neck. As it was, he pivoted around without thinking and found himself staring straight into the gleaming yellow orbs of a Monstrous Nightmare. The dragon's eyes narrowed and it delivered a thunderous roar that would shake even the most stalwart Viking to the bone.

"Aaaahh!" Hiccup sprang away like a frightened rabbit, tripping over his feet. Eyes fixated on the those very long, very sharp teeth shining in the indirect light, his fingers scrabbled for the knife that should have been on his belt. He faltered when he didn't find it, but he didn't need it. There was a set of thick iron bars between himself and the dragon.

Not that the knife would have served him any good even if the bars hadn't been there. The Saxons had relieved him of any weapons some time ago. There wasn't a single blade on his person, but the Nightmare was still growling at him as though it fully expected him to run screaming at it and brandishing an axe or sword or some other dangerous, pointy implement. The dragon eyed him ferociously with a hint of suspicion and then moved back from the bars, puffing black smoke from its nostrils. It looked quite satisfied with itself.

Letting out a slow breath, Hiccup backed up another step to get a better look at the iron bars that had prevented his untimely death. They looked thick and sturdy. He almost reached out to grab them and give them an experimental shake, but he knew that if he even stuck so much as a finger between the bars, the dragon wouldn't hesitate to bite it off.

Nonetheless, it was obvious that the bars were fully capable of withstanding an attack from a large, vicious dragon like the Monstrous Nightmare.

Correction: from **two** Monstrous Nightmares.

A second Nightmare was lurking behind the first, lingering in the shadows towards the back of the cage. It was eyeing Hiccup less ferociously than its companion, but the way it was looking at him implied that it was waiting for him to do something interesting. When it noticed that he was staring, the dragon deliberately shifted around until its back was to the Viking.

"Huh... Guess I shouldn't expect you to like me." Hiccup scratched at his neck. He glanced back to the first Monstrous Nightmare, not quite making eye contact. The dragon still hadn't looked away from the trespassing human. It didn't trust him. It didn't have any reason to. A person who trusted their dragons didn't lock them up in hollowed-out hills.

"I'm sorry." the Viking teen said quietly. "I wish there was something I could do-"

He was cut off by the short, crackling sound that he had only heard from the Hideous Zippleback. Hiccup jumped and looked around quickly. His eyes landed on the dragon in question.

In the neighboring cage, there were two heads bobbing around the bars, each bumping the other out of the way in a manner that reminded Hiccup very strongly of Ruffnut and Tuffnut. Two sets of pale yellow eyes were peering almost curiously at him. The Zippleback's heads chattered and crackled some more and to Hiccup's surprise, the Monstrous Nightmare threw an angry growl in the twin-headed dragon's direction, snorting out a small plume of black smoke. Undeterred, the Zippleback continued the chattering and crackling expectantly.

A sudden and extremely loud, bird-like warble from behind him had Hiccup slapping his hands over his ears, more out of surprise from the noise and not from the volume. He spun about, coming face-to-face with a new cage and an even newer dragon that he was not certain he had ever seen before.

This dragon looked somehow light and extremely fragile; like the gods had plucked clouds from the sky and molded them together into the shape of a dragon. It had a thin, twisting, serpentine body; gauzy, nearly translucent wings folded to its baby-blue scales. It was almost insubstantial, as if it would blow away in a stiff breeze, never to be seen again. In fact, it didn't even seem to be touching the ground. It taloned paws rested just inches above the dirt floor. Wide eyes of a rather lovely shade of turquoise regarded the Viking with innocent curiosity, rather than with the angry distrust still blazing from the Monstrous Nightmare.

The wispy dragon warbled again, but in a softer tone. As if that was the cue, the hollowed-out hill suddenly came alive with chatters and chirps, growls and hisses, grunts and snorts. Shocked, Hiccup turned slowly on the spot, seeing the rest of the cavern properly for the first time. There were more cages, each filled with more than one dragon. Jewel-bright eyes glittered in the dim shadows and claws scritched on the iron bars. More dragons and he didn't recognize half of them.

"Odin's beard..." Hiccup breathed. "It's like a dragon jail in here!"

He wasn't sure if he should be awed or disgusted. This was the way the Saxons were treating their dragons! No wonder they weren't having any success with training! The dragons were being treated like- Well, treated like sheep! The conditions were positively deplorable! The place smelled like piss and probably looked worse when the shadows were gone!

He moved from the cages containing the Nightmares and the wispy dragon, but he didn't get very far before a familiar, chittering growl stopped him. He automatically looked down, fully expecting to see a Terrible Terror hanging around his feet, hoping for a handout. But there wasn't one there. Instead, there was a small cage, about three foot by three foot in width and two feet in height. Hiccup carefully kneeled down, mindful not to get too close. Inside the small cage were three Terrible Terrors.

Anger surged through him, the poisonous kind that festered indefinitely. The three Terrors looked miserable in that cramped little cage. They could barely spread their wings without hitting each other, which undoubtedly caused the other two to snap at the offender.

And he especially didn't like how they recoiled from him, cramming themselves into the furthest corner, as far from him as they could get.

Hiccup was on his feet and moving back towards the door before he realized it. He faintly remembered seeing a wooden chest the previous night and his memories proved true. The chest was right by the door, right where he remembered. He threw the lid off and started digging through a mess of ropes and leather harnesses. There were candles and candlesticks; a small box of flint and tinder, parchment and sticks of charcoal. He threw it all aside, but he couldn't find what he wanted. There had to be something - a hammer - something heavy and metal - something he could use to break that cage open - anything!

And finally, at the bottom was a large hammer. A blacksmith's hammer to boot. He hefted it with a grin. This would do perfectly.

The hammer in hand, Hiccup marched back over to the Terrors' cage. The small dragons pushed themselves away from him again and he heard a rising chorus of growls from the rest of the dragons. Ignoring that and every single eye that turned his way, the Viking kneeled once more beside the cage and put the hammer down for the moment. He ran his hands along the surface of the metal sheet that was the cage's top, felt around the corners and rapped his knuckles on the points he knew would be the weakest. Being a blacksmith's apprentice had its perks. Or maybe Ketelbern didn't know his trade as well as he thought. He had not reinforced the corners. A couple of well-placed blows (maybe a dozen in Hiccup's case) ought to do it.

"Sorry about this." he said to the Terrors as he slowly flipped the cage onto its side. The three Terrors scrabbled with their claws at the cage's bottom and growled their displeasure at him as they came to rest on the bars that now made up the new floor.

Hiccup picked up the hammer again (the adjacent cage of Zipplebacks - three, he now counted - let out warning growls, no longer curious of him but wary). He straddled the cage between his knees to hold it steady.

"Stay down and don't move." he told the Terrors. "I don't want you getting hurt."

He didn't know if they actually understood him or not, but they hunkered down in a little pile of wings and tails as he lifted the heavy hammer and took aim.

The first blow was jarring and it rattled through his knees and all the way up his spine. His very bones were going to be vibrating after this. The hammer didn't even make a dent in the metal, but Hiccup hadn't been anticipating success on the first try. There was a reason he left the big stuff to Gobber.

He aimed the hammer with precision, taking the time to line up his shot before swinging away. Each blow rang hollowly through the hill, creating a dull ringing in his ears in short order. He tried to ignore the Terrible Terrors flinching every time the hammer landed. There was one with a green streak running the length of its spine, from the top of its head right down to the tip of its tail. It didn't so much as flinch as it did snarl and scrape its claws on the bars, glaring at him with large orange eyes.

Hiccup had to put the hammer down and sit himself down after he had managed just about a dozen hits. He just didn't have the muscles to sustain a steady pace with a hammer this big and he could feel himself shaking. Or maybe that was just his imagination. The cage had vibrated something fierce with each blow and he had felt every single one of them shaking his skull.

He looked down at the cage and frowned at his progress, or lack thereof, more appropriately. He had managed to bang open a hole that was barely a half an inch wide. It didn't look like he'd be getting any further without proper tools that he wasn't going to be able to get his hands on.

"If I could just sneak out of here long enough..." he said to himself, glancing over his shoulder to the door. No doubt it was chained and bolted on the other side. No sneaking out for him.

At the sound of his voice, the green-streaked Terror started growling again; a curiously high-pitched and slightly squeaky sound. It was definitely the least pleased with all the noise he had been making and it seemed equally displeased with him talking. Irritated, the small dragon reared back and with a hiss, shot a small glob of fire at him. It spattered harmlessly against the bars.

Heating them up.

Hit by an idea, Hiccup jumped to his feet and resumed straddling the cage with his knees. He picked up the hammer again and went to raise it like he was going to strike. He deliberately hesitated and looked down at the green-streaked Terror, hoping it would take the bait and make this work. He swung the hammer all the way back and then slammed it into the corner of the cage.

All three dragons jumped and the green-streaked one puffed out an angry fireball. It impacted with the torn corner and Hiccup swung the hammer hard at the break. He was rewarded by the sound of peeling metal. The irritated Terror shot another glob of fire in the Viking teen's direction. Hiccup took a few more hard whacks at the metal before to cooled past the point of being manageable. He wedged the head of the hammer into the hole and push it just a little wider.

Feeling accomplished, he stood back and admired his handiwork. He had managed to crack open a hole of about seven inches. Terrible Terrors were flexible little buggers who could find their way into and out of the smallest spaces imaginable. This wasn't much of an obstacle for them.

"Alright, your turn." he said cheerfully, shifting the cage back to its original position.

The green-streaked Terror was the boldest. It broke away from the other two and clambered up to the new hole, sniffing around it cautiously. Orange eyes suddenly snapped over to Hiccup, who had taken a seat on the floor a few feet away. He had shoved the hammer out of reach - so that it would be very obvious of he tried to get it - and sat in the most neutral position he could think of. He was sitting with his knees up and ankles crossed, his arms wrapped around his legs and fingers laced together. His hands stayed where they could be seen. He hoped that he cut an unimposing figure (he always did, but now moreso than ever).

Finally, the Terrible Terror folded its wings down to its belly and squeezed itself out of the cage, followed quickly by its fellows. Hiccup held out one hand very slowly, his palm flat and facing up. The green-streaked Terror cocked its head like it didn't quite know what to make of the proffered hand and made a bubbly growl that sounded more comical than threatening. It edged forward but as if crossing an invisible line, it suddenly skittered back and proceeded to do a nervous sort of dance back and forth.

Hiccup kept his hand out, his head down and his eyes focused on his knees. What had applied to Toothless also applied to other dragons. They considered it a threat if you stared directly at them while trying to make contact. He just see the Terror shifting nervously on the other side of the invisible line. At what sounded like an encouraging growl from the Monstrous Nightmare, the Terrible Terror made up its mind, darted forward and bit down on his hand.

Terrible Terrors had teeth. They weren't big teeth; just sharp little triangles that were best suited for tearing away the soft flesh of a raw fish in small bites. They were not particularly noticeable either, but the point was, they had teeth.

Hiccup didn't scream or jerk his hand away or try to bat the Terror off. In fact, he was very proud of his lack of reaction. He flinched and his eyes started to tear up as the dragon's jaws tightened around his hand, but he didn't do anything else. He didn't want to hurt the dragon.

"Let go." he requested quietly. His fingers were starting to tremble as he repeatedly forced his hand to relax. It was nearly impossible. No one relaxed when they had incisors shoved into their flesh, no matter how small "Let go. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not one of them!"

Maybe the Terror really did understand him, because its eyes went from narrow and angry to wide and slightly frightened. It abruptly disengaged its teeth, looking very thoroughly confused. Then it backed away, back across that invisible line, all the while making little whining noises to itself.

Hiccup had to say that he had never seen a dragon look so bewildered before. Like it couldn't figure out why he hadn't reacted to its attack.

"Because I'm not like that." he replied, shrugging, remembering his inability to prove to Toothless that he was a proper Viking. "I guess I never was."

The teen examined the bite. It was a half moon of bloody indents on either side of his hand. It hurt, but it didn't look too bad. He would have to be careful about using his hand until he could find something to wrap it up with.

The other two Terrible Terrors shuffled forward until they were level with their fellow. Hiccup brought his bleeding hand to his chest, wincing when all three Terrors flinched back. He heard warning rumbles from the other dragons, but Hiccup just lowered his other hand all the way to the floor, palm up.

Once more, it was the green-streaked Terror who moved first, though without the encouragement from the Monstrous Nightmare this time. It scuttled up to the proffered hand again, stretching out its neck and this time, taking a few tentative sniffs rather than a bite out of his flesh. Hiccup wished he had some meat or fish to give as a peace offering, more so the Terror wouldn't be tempted to taste-test his other hand.

He sucked in a slow breath and held it as the small dragon extended its head across his palm. He crooked one finger, reached up just slightly and started scratching the dragon's chin. To his delight, he got the predicted response; a little puddle happy dragon goo. The Terrible Terror began to purr, its eyes half-closed in pleasure. When Hiccup felt bold enough to use four of his fingers to scratch the dragon's chin, the Terror practically melted into the Viking's hand.

"Not so terrible now, are you." Hiccup joked, smiling and pleased that he had managed to earn at least one dragon's trust. One down, only- Quite a few left to go. "And I'm not so scary."

Just when it seemed that he had made some progress, the doors banged open and all the dragons retreated into the shadows of their cages. The Terrors scrambled to hide and the two people that Hiccup hoped that he wouldn't see today stormed inside.

"Well? Have you started yet?" Lord Cynerīc demanded, striding toward the Viking with long purposeful steps. He was wearing a darker colored tunic today with a high collar and a leather vest cinched over it. Ketelbern followed several paces behind, large and menacing as usual. His arms were streaked with soot and the blacksmith's apron was still tied to his person.

Hiccup got to his feet very quickly. The moment he was upright, three small bodies hit the back of his legs and stayed there. The Terrible Terrors had chosen to use him as their cover. Strange considering that less than a few moments ago, they had been growling and wary and didn't trust him, but they trusted the Saxons even less.

"Making friends, are we?" the Saxon lord asked condescendingly, glaring down at the three small dragons. The green-streaked Terror arched its back and growled. _Stay away! Stay away!_ it seemed to be saying. It had spread it wings protectively over the other two.

"Hardly. I'll be lucky if the bigger ones don't use me for a toothpick." Hiccup said sarcastically. "What are you doing to these dragons that makes them scared of people?"

"That's none of your business so don't ask questions." Lord Cynerīc waved a hand dismissively. "What is your business is when you're going to start taming these damn dragons. I want to see it. Have you started yet?"

"No... I haven't been awake very long." the Viking pointed out.

"Good, then we haven't missed anything." Lord Cynerīc said this to Ketelbern. He turned back to Hiccup. "How long before can we take the dragons into battle?"

At first, Hiccup thought he had heard wrong.

"B-Battle?... You said 'battle', right?"

"Of course I did." Lord Cynerīc nodded. "What else did you think we were going to use the dragons for? Fun and games?" He sneered. "They're fire-breathing lizards with nasty tempers. I need to make use of that if I'm going to do anything about those uppity Romans-"

He paused mid-sentence, gave Hiccup a meaningful look, and carefully added: "And the Vikings, naturally."

"Wait..." Hiccup was really doubting that he was hearing this right. If he was, it was madness. "You want me - a Viking; descendant of the same people who used to trash your villages - to train **your** dragons - just so you can go and wipe out **my** tribe?"

"I do love poetic justice." Lord Cynerīc said with a fond, but still mocking smile.

"And if I don't train your dragons?" Hiccup prompted.

Lord Cynerīc heaved a thoughtful sigh. "Well, I suppose I can't kill you. That wouldn't get me anywhere." he commented. "Though I suppose there's nothing wrong with torturing you until you've told me the secret. Ketelbern, show me again how painful hot metal is."

In response, Ketelbern hiked up a trouser leg. On his muscular calf was a stark white burn scar. Hiccup figured it was less than a year old because it was still remarkably detailed. Ketelbern had evidently been making a blade, perhaps a sword. The central ridge and the point stood out clearly against the tanned skin. The burn appeared to have healed cleanly, but to make that stark of an impression meant that the fire had to have been incredibly hot.

"Took months to heal. Thought they were going to have cut a chunk out of my skin." the blacksmith growled. He canted a thick eyebrow. "You ever smelled burning flesh before?"

"Yeah. When my own leg was on fire." Hiccup replied, tapping his metal foot on the ground. That smell was one of the few things he remembered after being whacked on the head by the Queen Dragon's bulbous tail. And he wasn't going to forget it.

"You ever smelled it everyday? When hot metal brands are being applied to your skin every hour, turning it so red and raw you don't think it'll ever heal?" Ketelbern went on, untying the leather apron. He shucked it off and his tunic followed shortly thereafter. Stamped into the skin of his back was a plethora of raised burn scars that, from a distance, looked like the two-headed eagle on the flag of the Holy Roman Empire.

"This is what the Romans do to traitors and runaways." Lord Cynerīc said, gesturing to heavy scarring. "Everyone thought Ketelbern here was going to die; the burns were so terrible and he wasn't much older than you at the time."

A lump rose in Hiccup's throat and he nervously swallowed it down.

"I'm no expert on torture - never been tortured, you see - but Ketelbern's an artist." the Saxon lord went on indolently while the blacksmith replaced his tunic. "I'm sure, if you're not going to cooperate, he could burn something into your skin. Slowly. Inch. By. Inch."

Hiccup grimaced. His own hands and forearms were flecked with tiny scars from the sparks that flew off the metal he was trying to shape. He was so used to the stinging that he barely noticed until the end of the day when he usually doused his arms in water to wash the soot off. Occupational hazard of being a blacksmith; he was sure Gobber had more scar tissue on his arms than actual skin.

As for his missing foot... Well, he could only remember the smell, not the pain.

"Keeping that in mind, little savage," Lord Cynerīc prompted. "Are you willing to cooperate with us, or not?"

Hiccup was torn. He wanted to say 'no', just because that was an option. He wanted to dare the Saxons to haul him away and do their worst to him. But he would worry, every day - not about himself, but what would happen to the dragons.

What would happen to the dragons if he wasn't the person taking care of them?


	5. Chains

**A/N:** One thing people kept remarking about was the fact that Hiccup was more worried for the dragons' wellbeing than his own and many of you found that touching. And you know what? That's the sort of person Hiccup is. I mean, he practically begs Stoic to beat the crap out of him while leaving Toothless out of it. He's a very selfless guy.

And please check out "The Strangers" by: Travis Church. It's a good story and it needs some love.

**Disclaimer:** Quite unfortunately, I do not own _How to Train Your Dragon_. That honor belongs to Dreamworks and Cressida Cowell. I would like to apologize to the word "chain". I feel it got a little overused in the last half of the chapter.

* * *

**Valkyrie**

Chapter Five: Chains

* * *

In the end, when he had turned the matter over in his head five times in as many seconds, Hiccup really didn't see any other option jumping up and down, waving its hand and shouting: "pick me! pick me!" The Saxons had practically smushed him into a corner and then put up all sorts of weird nasty traps to prevent him from getting out of that corner. They wanted trained dragons and he was the only person who knew what he was doing.

He really, really didn't want to be tortured either.

"Okay... I'll do it." he said, quietly admitting defeat. "I'll train your dragons for you."

Time to put being a stubborn Viking on hold. This was the best thing he could do right now. It was the only thing.

Lord Cynerīc nodded agreeably. "That's a smart decision-"

"Just - one thing." the Viking interrupted, holding up his hand.

"You're not in any position to be adding conditions to our agreement." Lord Cynerīc pointed out, frowning.

"It's just one thing." Hiccup assured him. "And it's not a condition. It's just something I need to say."

Lord Cynerīc nodded and Hiccup, having been given the go ahead, inhaled a deep breath and shouted:

"Just what the hell have you been doing to these dragons? That Nightmare hated me on sight! I think the rest of them would be happier avoiding me! They don't like me! How do you expect me to train them? They probably haven't flown in ages! I don't think they could even get off the ground! You've got them locked in cages, for Thor's sake! And you want to take them out into a _battle_? Where there's all kind of fire and death and stabbity things that could tear their wings apart and send both the dragon and the rider plunging to a splattery death? Are you _insane_?- Wait, don't answer that!"

Hiccup managed to say all of this in two breaths and his face was a bit red when he was finished.

"And please tell me you've been feeding them!" he pleaded. He didn't see any sign of food anywhere. It made him nervous. "You're doing this all wrong. You really are. You can't train dragons like this."

"Failure has made me aware of that. That's why I want you to do it instead." Lord Cynerīc told him with a careless shrug.

"Are you even listening to me?" Hiccup started, frustrated. "Unless you start-"

"You obviously have a way with the beasts." Lord Cynerīc said, talking over him. "Ketelbern has told me that you have a grown Night Fury as a mount, meaning you've gotten the rotten beast to listen to you, which is more than we've managed and we've had that damn thing- what, fifty-odd years?" He cast a look at his blacksmith, searching for confirmation.

"My grandfather assisted in the capture, if I recall." Ketelbern nodded.

"And here we thought training from a fledgling would be easier. If anything, that's harder." Lord Cynerīc let out a cynical laugh. "But now I believe that all we needed was someone who speaks their language. It's up to you to whip them into shape.

"Speaking of whips, you're going to need one." he added.

He casually tossed a long, vicious-looking cat o'nine tails to the floor at Hiccup's feet. At the leathery slap the implement made when it hit, hisses like water dropped on a hot kettle erupted from every side. Hiccup didn't even have to turn his head to see the dragons practically climbing over each other in order to get as far from the whip as they could. One of the Terrors very nearly clawed its way up the Viking's leg; most fortunately digging its claws into the prosthetic rather than the flesh and blood.

It was the dragons' reaction that set him off.

"How many times will I have to say it! You can't treat your dragons like this!" Hiccup all but screamed, storming across the empty space that separated him from the two Saxons. "They're not just fire-breathing lizards! They're not war-machines! They won't do tricks just because you want them to! They're your friends if you let them be, but you're not! You just think they're dumb, mindless beasts who need to be broken! You lock them up, you use a-" He choked on the word and had to force it out. "A whip on them!-"

He wanted to shriek in inarticulate rage, but coherent words spilled out instead. His brain still had more to say.

"No wonder you're not having any luck! No wonder you can't even get near them! They hate you! They don't trust you! They don't trust anyone! And you know why? Because you're a bunch of assholes!

"And you _stink_!" he added, stabbing a finger at them. It was a sort of childish jab, but it felt good to say. "By the gods, do you know how much you stink? You smell worse than Snotlout on a good day! Worse than Tuffnut on a bad day! The out-houses are flowers compared to you! I've smelled dragon crap that smells better you! That's offensive! Your body odor is offending me!"

Hiccup might have gone on a little further in this vein. He had quite a lot to say about the smell of this place and some colorful ways to say it too, but Ketelbern was not a man who liked listening to people shout and rant and carry on like a tornado siren that just wouldn't shut up. He was the person who preferred to do the shouting and ranting and carrying on like a tornado siren that just wouldn't shut up. And since Hiccup had marched up to a fairly close distance, it was very easy for Ketelbern to put out a fist and knock the Viking down like he was one of those blow-up punching bag dolls.

That was sort of a mistake. The instant Hiccup hit the ground, there was a challenging shriek and the three Terrible Terrors were in the air. They dive-bombed the blacksmith, their green-streaked fellow leading the charge.

"Holy mother of-!" That was all Ketelbern had time to shriek when the green-streaked Terror clamped its jaws over the man's nose and started to gnaw and pull like the nose was a particularly tough piece of meat. The other two simply ran all over the blacksmith, gleefully digging their claws in and drawing blood with every step.

Lord Cynerīc did this odd sort of dance back and forth, his fingers flicking wildly in agitation. His hands made a dive towards the Terrors whenever one of them ran past, but he would yank them back just as quickly. He was trying to figure out how to remove the small dragons from the blacksmith without getting hurt himself. It didn't help that Ketelbern was flailing. The hand that wasn't occupied with removing the Terror from his nose was slapping at the other two and missing every single time. When it didn't look possible for Lord Cynerīc to remove the Terrors without getting hurt, he turned to Hiccup.

"Do something!" he commanded.

Hiccup just whistled a peculiar three-note call that he had often heard between from small mobs of Terrible Terrors. Usually, when this call was made, a stray Terror would come rushing out to rejoin the main group. He had always figured it was a sort of 'come here' or 'over here' signal to keep the mob together. It had been beneficial to learn how to mimic it. It was the easiest way to call the little dragons off Tuffnut.

It worked like it always did. The three Terrible Terrors leapt off of Ketelbern and rushed back over to Hiccup. Two of them darted behind his back. The green-streaked one wriggled underneath his arm and around Hiccup's elbow, shot the scratched and bleeding blacksmith a very smug look. Ketelbern glowered, holding his nose tightly between two fingers.

"And **that** is the sort of behavior I want stopped." Lord Cynerīc declared with a frown. "So you had better put that-" He pointed to the whip. "-to good use."

He turned briskly on his heel and marched out of the compound.

"Don't encourage it." Ketelbern added warningly. He lingered long enough to point two fingers at his eyes, then one back at Hiccup and the three dragons. "Got my eye on you."

Then he too walked out smartly and shut the heavy door so hard it echoed through the hollowed-out hill.

* * *

Some time after the Saxon leader and his shadowing blacksmith had left, Hiccup was still sitting on the dirt floor where he had initially fallen. The Terrible Terrors had gathered around his ankles. They watched him stare at his bitten hand and bite his lower lip while his expression flitted between thoughtful frustration and a sort of angry defiance. Every so often, the three Terrors would exchange unreadable glances of their own.

Then he finally bit into his lip.

"Aargh!" Hiccup scruffed his fingers through his hair wildly, causing it to stand on end. "What am I gonna do? I'm all the way up shit creek without a paddle! I can't train you guys until you trust me and you three look like you're gonna bolt if I move too quickly and that really doesn't help me with the trust part."

He gave the three Terrors an accusatory glare while running a finger over the bloody part of his lip. If nothing else, their behavior had shown him just how difficult it was going to be to even get near the bigger dragons. Terrible Terrors had small fireballs. Other dragons like Monstrous Nightmares had very large fireballs.

It was the fire-breathing part that Hiccup was worried about.

"And the Saxons aren't going to let me leave. Not unless I do something first or escape on my own, which doesn't look likely." This time, he glared at the door. He had heard the chains sliding back into place. "They can't kill me because that won't get them anywhere. Hell, I don't think they _want_ to torture me. I mean, what's-his-face threatened me with a _choice_. I think they'd rather leave torture as the very last option, in case I turn out to be the stupid, stubborn Viking they're expecting me to be."

It rankled at him that they had been expecting him to be some kind of savage, albeit smarter than your average savage. But they had still expected him to be uncouth and uncivilized. He could probably fulfill their expectations with a few adjustments, but being a stubborn Viking wasn't going to get **him** anywhere either. Though it would make him happy and the Saxons angry, they would run out of patience with him much faster.

Hiccup sighed, shaking his head. "And let's face it, even if I **can** train you guys enough that the Saxons are happy, they still aren't gonna let me go. I am the mighty slayer of the Queen Dragon! That thing was enormous!" He stretched his arms out as far as he could, but there was no properly conveying the size of that monster unless you had seen it with your own eyes. "I mean, Toothless did most of the work, but I came up with the plan... And got _this_ out of it."

He made a slightly disgusted gesture to his false foot. Sometimes, he still felt angry about it; wondered why he couldn't have come out of that fight in one piece; wondered what the gods were thinking when they decided that it would be okay for him to lose his foot. Yes, it was better than losing his life - he would take his life over his foot any day - but whenever the prosthetic bothered him horribly and he just wanted to cry from the pain, he would curse the gods for letting it happen.

"But like I said, they've got nothing to lose by keeping me here." he went on grouchily. "They'll keep me here so I can keep training every dragon they bring through those doors. I'm useful to them."

It sounded like such a curse. At last he was useful to his tribe. And now he was useful to everyone else who had the slightest thing to do with dragons.

"Anyways, when has any Viking ever made it home after being captured by Saxons? I'm the only living Viking in this entire stinking place."

Hiccup let out a quiet, derisive snort and his chin thunked down lightly on his knees. He rolled his head to the side far enough to regard the green-streaked Terrible Terror with empathy.

"Just as trapped as you guys." he said sadly. He sighed, pushing out all his frustration and misery out with the air. Damn that blacksmith, he had been right. No one was coming for him.

"Well... Better figure out what I'm supposed to do."

The Viking got back to his feet and the Terrible Terrors scattered away so they wouldn't be stepped on. Around him, the dragons shuffled back and continued watching his every movement with care. Hiccup strode back over to the cat o'nine tails, scowled at it, and then kicked it clear into the darkest corner.

"I'm not a Saxon. I'm not one of them. I am a Viking." he told the dragons. "Maybe that doesn't sound any better to you. Maybe you know the stories about Vikings and dragons and the war we used to fight. But that war is over. In my village, no dragon dies at a human's hand. Not anymore. And if I have my way, all of you are getting out of here alive."

There was a strange undercurrent of noise through the hollowed-out hill. It was barely audible to Hiccup, but it raised the hairs on the back of his neck. He didn't know if the dragons had understood him, but the atmosphere had shifted. He could tell that he had less of their ire and more of their interest.

It had been a rough start, but things felt like they were smoothing out now.

Breathing a long sigh, Hiccup ventured slowly down the path between the cages. The Terrible Terrors trailed after him as he walked, just a few steps shy of getting underfoot. The Viking paused in front of the Zipplebacks' cage and watched three dragons shifted uneasily in the vanishing shadows. Zippleback number one had a mottled pattern across its chest that extended up the neck of the left-side head. Zippleback number two was more brown than green and its right-side head was crackling with sparks, its eyes narrowed. Both dragons were backed up against the far wall.

Zippleback number three was the same one who had been conversing with the Monstrous Nightmare earlier. The right-side head was missing the tip of its nose horn and the left-side head had an odd sort of dent in its lower jaw, like a chunk of bone had been removed and the flesh had merely healed over it. It was the only one of the three who looked interested in Hiccup. The heads were still bumping each other out of the way to get a better look and it hurried right up the bars as he stepped forward. Hiccup smiled a little and moved on to the next cage.

And rather wished that he hadn't.

This one held two Boneknappers.

The Boneknapper was quite possibly the most terrifying-looking dragon in existence. Presumably they were the distant cousins of the Monstrous Nightmares, being literally of the same skeletal structure. That was all this dragon was; a skeleton. It was said that once a Nightmare had angered the gods and in punishment, the gods had once stripped the flesh from the Nightmare and gave it unnatural life. Like the Monstrous Nightmare, the Boneknapper could set its skeleton aflame. Unlike the Monstrous Nightmare, no one knew if they were really alive at all.

Both skeletal dragons watched Hiccup with hollow black eyes until a cold shiver ran up and down his spine and he quickly turned away. Across from the Boneknappers was a cage full of Puff Nadders. They were the slightly smaller and considerably less vain cousins of the Deadly Nadders. Puff Nadders were often a bright, poisonous yellow and were said to be one of the most venomous dragon species. According to the Dragon Manual, they weren't particularly fond of their vain cousins. Wherever there was a large concentration of Deadly Nadders, you could be sure that there wasn't a Puff Nadder within twenty miles.

The Puff Nadders fidgeted and squawked when he got what they deemed to be too close to their cage. Hiccup held up his hands to show he was harmless and backed off a step, but that apparently wasn't enough for one of them. The agitated one flared its wings and whipped its spiked-filled tail around. A handful of spikes shot from the appendage towards Hiccup. Most of them bounced off the bars, but several of them made it through, forcing the Viking (and the Terrors) to dodge to the side. He had heard those spikes were full of a poison that could paralyze a man in two minutes flat. Probably less time than that if you were a skinny streak of nothing like Hiccup.

"Great, dragons who want to kill me and dragons who will probably give me nightmares." he groaned, slumping against the bars of the cage adjacent to the Puff Nadders. "Let's put them right across from each other and leave me no place to walk safely."

Hot air huffed across the back of his neck. The cage behind him was not empty.

"Please be friendly, please be friendly, please be friendly." Hiccup pleaded, praying that the gods were with him on this one. He slowly turned around.

The gods were with him on this one. The dragon that stood directly behind him made a soft coo, as if asking him not to run. The rest of the dragons that were staring him down were not angry, glaring and growling like the Nightmare. As a matter of fact, it looked like they were making an effort to not be **too** interested in him. Indeed, most of them were turning their heads away like they didn't care, but their eyes kept flickering back to him.

The dragons (all five of them) were no bigger than Toothless - perhaps a little smaller - but they had the biggest, hairiest noses he had ever seen. The nostrils all but dominated their blunt snouts. They had gentle, aquamarine scales, barrel-like bodies, and stubby legs. They reminded him of the wolfhounds that the Vikings had used for hunting once - before the dragons had started targeting the canines too and it became detrimental to keep the dogs.

The one that stood closest to the bars (so close that he could have easily touched it) had nostrils were so large that Hiccup probably could have stuck his head inside with some inches to spare. This one seemed older; it had more gray on its scales than the others and - dare he say it? - more wrinkles around its eyes. The four others had given this grayer one a sizeable berth.

Nostrils aquiver, it stuck its head forward and breathed in, inhaling the Viking's scent. Hiccup felt the air rush past him and get sucked up the dragon's nose. It snorted and then made a rumbling noise deep in its throat that sounded nothing short of triumphant. All of a sudden, there was a loud burst of chatter from all sides. The dragons were talking to each other again. Hiccup had a good feeling that **he** was the center of the conversation.

The remaining, large-nosed dragons finally gave up the pretense of being uninterested in him and charged to the front of the cage. Hiccup jumped and reflexively fell back several steps, despite knowing very well that unless he stuck his hands between the bars, there was no way the dragons could reach him. Not that they cared; they just repeated the actions of their elder and practically gaped at him.

He drew back and averted his eyes slightly. It was unnerving to be under such close scrutiny. He was used to going unnoticed and he was rapidly turning dodging the villagers' collective attention into an art form. He tried to step away again, but the Terrible Terrors were suddenly at his feet, circling between his ankles like hawks, sniffing his legs and chirring every so often.

A trilling noise had him looking over his shoulder. Every dragon had pushed themselves up to the bars of their cages, heads and necks straining to get him in sight. The Zipplebacks were practically fighting each other and spitting sounds at one another that seemed vaguely insulting. The Puff Nadders were squawking like parrots, making more noise than the Timberjacks behind him and the Deadly Nadders to their right. He could hear the snorting of Gronckles while their wings buzzed and the rumbling growls from the Monstrous Nightmares sounded somehow apologetic. Even the Boneknappers seemed to have adopted a less hostile demeanor.

Surreptitiously, Hiccup smelled his clothes. They smelled like bilge water, dirt, salt and only vaguely of the sulfur-like scent that seemed to always accompany the dragons back home. Whatever else the dragons smelled on him, he didn't smell it, but it had **them** all excited.

_What do I smell like to them?_ He wondered, slightly perturbed. It had never bothered him before - he took his baths regularly and was easier on the olfactory sense than half the tribe, but... _Maybe- Maybe they can smell Toothless!_

It was a shot in the dark, but Toothless had accompanied him most everywhere on the ground. They were all but inseparable. How long could scents linger?

Before he could really start to think about it, his train of thought was interrupted. One dragon's voice rose above all the others, a strident, almost desperate cry that sent a shiver down his spine. It was very, _very_ familiar.

_Toothless?_

Panic gripped Hiccup hard and he bolted past the remaining cages, completely forgetting his promise not to go running about on his leg. But adrenaline and fear had him throwing caution to the winds. Horrible imagery flashed through his mind. Of Toothless, trapped in one of these cages.

Had the Saxons captured him too? Had they seen the Night Fury and then opportunity strolling up the path to their front door?

_Toothless!_

Hiccup skidded to a halt in front of the last cage, looking wildly over the dragon inside. Familiar features jumped out at him, but it was a moment before he could put it all together.

And he almost fell over in relief. It was indeed a Night Fury, but it wasn't Toothless.

Toothless's eyes weren't blue.

Other than that, the captured Night Fury was all but identical to Hiccup's best friend. He wasn't sure if it was bigger or smaller - he didn't really have a size comparison. It had the same powerful wings and floppy ears, and the fringe of fleshy spikes around its head. The only real differences were, of course, the eye color which was a vibrant sapphire blue, the dusting of gray across the top of the wings and the tail was fully intact.

Oh, and the manacle clamped snugly around its right hind leg with a chain secured to a metal ring sunken into the floor, which was stone rather than dirt.

"You're not Toothless." Hiccup whispered, weak-kneed with relief. He wrapped his fingers around the bars and closed his eyes. "You're not Toothless... No, you're not. You've been here longer." he realized, looking at the blue-eyed Night Fury. Lord Cynerīc's previous words had come back to him. About attempting to train a Night Fury from the fledgling stage and having no luck there either.

Hiccup closed his eyes again and let go a heavy sigh of relief, his forehead against the bars. He couldn't help the relief he felt at knowing that this Night Fury wasn't Toothless. He also couldn't help the anger at knowing that the Saxons had captured a Night Fury, no matter how long ago it had happened.

None of this should have happened.

The Night Fury shuffled in spot, sending the chain links jingling. Keeping its eyes on Hiccup, it lowered its head and slowly stepped forward, a low, rumbling sort of moan coming from its throat. Averting his own eyes, Hiccup twisted his upper body and fit his shoulder between the bars. It was a bit of a tight fit, but he managed it and hesitantly stretched out his hand to the Night Fury.

He heard the chain links jingling some more as the dragon moved towards him and then they abruptly stopped. All he felt was hot air blasting off his palm and he raised his head to look. The chain had pulled taut. The Night Fury had its neck stretched as far out as it could, leaning forward on its front legs so that its manacled leg was no longer touching the ground, but there was still about six inches left between his hand and the dragon. There wasn't enough slack to close the gap.

Hiccup sighed and pulled his hand back, wiggling his shoulder loose of the bars. The Night Fury shook itself a bit and likewise pulled back until its foot was back on the ground and the chain was loose again. It sat like a cat and its tail swished around to hide the manacle around its hind leg. The dragon stared at Hiccup with large blue eyes in a manner that reminded him too much of Toothless.

He had just turned away when a particular contraption on the wall caught his eye.

A heavy chain ran up the wall and through several pulleys suspended high above from the wooden gridwork, before dropping down to connect to the topmost horizontal bar on the front of cage, which he now realized was probably the door as well. The other end of the chain was wrapped around a crank (at shoulder-level with Hiccup) that would pull the door up when turned. Two long poles ran up on either side of the chain and horizontal bars jutting out from the poles further locked the chain in place. The chain refused to budge an inch, even when he leaned all his weight on it. He even went as far as to lift his feet off the ground to see if that made a difference. It didn't. Whoever had designed this system had certainly been a clever bastard.

Hiccup hated that person already.

A quick check confirmed that similar mechanisms existed to the left side of every cage.

Further enclosing the dragons in were the horizontal bars over the tops of the cages, which sat about twenty feet above the floor. The Monstrous Nightmare was probably able to hang from there without bothering its companion.

The Saxons had clearly put a lot of thought into keeping their dragons completely contained.

The Terrible Terrors chirruped near Hiccup's feet.

Well, mostly contained.

Shaking his head, Hiccup turned and walked towards the second pair of double doors that lay past the Night Fury's cage. He pushed them open, not surprised to find the hinges well-oiled. Beyond the doors was a wide arena that made up the other half of the hill. A chain-link net hung over the arena, effectively cutting the dragons off from the sky. It was very similar to what hung over the training arena back home. As a matter of fact, Hiccup realized that the design was nearly identical.

"Thieves." he muttered darkly, striding forward.

The Terrible Terrors trotted after him like ducklings and almost immediately broke away from him to enthusiastically investigate their new surroundings. This was definitely where the Saxons had tried to train the dragons. Keyword there being 'tried'. The evidence of failure was all over the place. Where the stone hadn't been blackened by fire-breath, claws had gouged deep, leaving long furrows and large chunks of rock behind. This didn't bother the Terrors. They flopped happily on the warm stone and spread their wings to soak up as much heat as they could.

The little dragons looked very content to stay there, so Hiccup trekked across to the other side of the arena. To the grate the covered the exit. It wasn't _just like_ the one back home. It was _exactly like_ the one back home. The design was so similar that someone had clearly stolen the idea from someone else. And it was weighted perfectly so that Hiccup could push it open with one hand and not much effort on his part.

It was the air that hit him first. A sweet breeze lightly scented by the first wildflowers of spring. He couldn't smell waste products or unwashed humanity. There was no crowded town or clamoring noises to ruin the tranquility. Just grassy hills and the wind and the quiet.

He could run away right now, he realized. It might not be until tomorrow morning that someone came to check up on him. He could have almost twenty-four hours before anyone realized that he was gone. He could take off right now and be on his way home in no time (assuming he didn't get mauled and/or eaten by the local wildlife first).

But he didn't move a step. Something urged him to run, but there was a stronger pull to what lay behind him. He couldn't abandon the dragons. He couldn't abandon that Night Fury. Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to look at Toothless and still live with himself or the knowledge that he had left over three dozen dragons at the mercies of people who used _whips_.

There was something he had to do here. He had to show these dragons that not all humans were the same. He still had to prove to them that he wasn't going to hurt them. He had to gain their trust (and maybe the key to those darn locks). He had made a bit of progress on that front; between freeing the Terrors and kicking the whip into the corner. He was really starting to believe that he still smelled like a Night Fury too. He certainly had the dragons' curiosity and interest now. That was far better than their hostility.

And he was going to have to start by getting the dragons' strength back up. They weren't going to get anywhere in their current conditions. He was absolutely certain that the dragons weren't being fed enough. Berk was full of healthy, well-fed dragons and the ones here looked a bit wane and sickly. Fresh food, fresh water; that was what they needed. He would work on fresh air later and if he could wrangle it, open skies.

And maybe, if the gods were willing, he could return to Berk on dragon-back.

* * *

- -


End file.
